Happy Thanksgiving! This is the season when we reflect on lots of reasons to express gratitude. We might be thankful for a health improvement, a raise on a job, great favor with a teacher, winning an award, a big accomplishment, a tasty meal and lots more. While I love this holiday, it always zings me a little bit because I want gratitude to be my lifestyle and not just a seasonal celebration.
To this end, I’ve been thinking about Jesus and how He expressed gratitude. When I first looked into the situations where Jesus was thankful, I was surprised to see something very curious. One of the first places where we see Jesus expressing gratitude was when He multiplied the bread and fish in Matthew 14. In this miracle, it’s interesting to note the sequence of events for His gratitude.
The whole challenge started when Jesus’ disciples came to Him after He’d been teaching a huge crowd of more than 5,000 people. They told Jesus that He needed to dismiss everyone so they could go and get food, given how long everyone had been listening to Jesus and their remote location in proximity to the nearest villages where they could buy food. Jesus answered His disciples’ request by asking what they had available, and they replied that they had five loaves of bread and two fish. Clearly, this amount was nowhere close to being adequate to feeding such a massive crowd. Nevertheless, Jesus didn’t freak out. Instead, we read what He did in Matthew 14:19:
“And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.”
Consider that Jesus thanked God before He miraculously multiplied the fish and bread.
In another miracle, Jesus does something similar. In John 11, we read about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, which was an outrageous miracle considering that Lazarus had been dead for four days! Before He did something so miraculous, let’s look at what He said in John 11:41:
“So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me.’”
After Jesus thanked His Father, then He raised Lazarus from the dead.
Before the miraculous food multiplication and the supernatural resurrection of Lazarus, Jesus expressed gratitude. I bring this to your attention because we usually are thankful after we receive something. But in these examples, Jesus expressed gratitude before the miracles.
In looking at Jesus’ actions, we can learn something really important. We don’t need to wait to be thankful until we receive something. Instead, we can be grateful before we receive good things, miracles and blessings. I call this concept pre-gratitude, and it helps me to keep a lifestyle of gratitude instead of being thankful as a reaction.
As we reflect on the concept of pre-gratitude, perhaps we can set ourselves up for better success with New Year’s resolutions by starting to be thankful for achieving them even before we turn the calendar to January 2025. Furthermore, perhaps being thankful before accomplishments and blessings can help us cultivate a lifestyle of gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving!
