A grateful person is a happy person

essays on my father's sayings, part 1

Nov 24, 2024

“A grateful person is a happy person.”

I have heard my father utter this phrase countless times, for as long as I can remember, and the longer I live, the more I know it to be true. The more I am sanctified, the sweeter this truth becomes. In honour of the wonderful holiday ahead, Thanksgiving, I thought there could be no better time than to explore this wonderful truth which is grounded in Scripture!

Gratitude is defined as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”1 Gratitude goes beyond saying “thank you”; it is the ready spirit which is desirous to return an act of kindness out of a thankful heart.

What gratitude is intrinsically tied to

Gratitude should be a constant state for the believer. On my behalf, Christ, after living the perfect life, has laid down His life for me, taking my sin and shame on the cross, and then He has risen from the dead—justifying me legally before the Father by wiping my debt, and then imputing His righteousness onto me that I might be in good standing before God, able to enter into communion with Him and have eternal life. I should constantly want to “show appreciation for [this] and to return kindness”2 to my Lord and Saviour.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!

1 Chronicles 16:34

As I meditate on the work of the gospel—which is why it is so important that we hear it, week to week, on the Sabbath—I am overwhelmed with how undeserving I am of salvation and a life of sanctification. This creates a more grateful spirit within me, and a renewed desire to love the Lord as He has said: by keeping His commandments.

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence.

Psalm 140:13

They say that cleanliness is next to godliness, but it’s more accurate to say that gratitude is. Gratitude definitively cultivates godliness: “Biblical ethics have gratitude at their core, for it is always thankfulness to the Lord that is to motivate our obedience…Christian thankfulness will always display itself in good deeds and verbal expressions of gratitude.”3

Truly, a grateful heart is reflective of one who keeps the greatest commandments: to have no other gods before the one, true God, loving Him with all that we have, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

The growth of the Christian through gratitude

My worship will better as my gratitude does, out of a growing natural instinct and out of obedience:

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12:28-29

My desire for better health, a better circumstance, or any other kind of improvement or request will be motivated, truly, by a desire to see God’s name glorified, because I will know that He is sanctifying me for my good and His glory, and I will be grateful, no matter the outcome:

“lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” For they are Your people and Your heritage, whom You brought out by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm.”
—Deuteronomy 9:28–29 (italics and emphasis added)
“Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather and deliver us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.”
—1 Chronicles 16:35 (italics added)
“Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.”
—Psalm 106:47 (italics added)
“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you…”
—1 Thessalonians 5:18

My thankfulness will bring glory to the Lord, not only among His people, but before the secular world:

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.
Psalm 57:9

My every deed becomes more attuned to God’s glory and can be an act of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Colossians 3:17

My ability to forgive well, that is, genuinely and with a proper attitude, increases, for all that I have is an inheritance from Christ that I do not deserve, therefore I ought to extend grace and forgiveness since it has been so richly lavished upon me. We will be the opposite of this servant:

Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
Matthew 18:32-35

How gratitude makes us happy

It naturally follows that as your Christian walk improves while you walk in step with the Lord’s commandments, obeying Him out of a grateful heart, so will your level of joy improve. Living a holy and righteous life leads to a happy one. When you are no longer a slave to sin, but instead are wondrously a servant of the Most High, fulfilling the chief end of man to glorify God, you can enjoy Him forever.

Gratitude also reflects satisfaction and contentment. It is not the work of a restless spirit or of someone with constant exasperation and resentment.

I can attest to this personally because I was once very bitter and upset that I did not get to go to college where I wanted. Since sophomore year of high school, I nurtured dreams and continued to hope through the first three years of college that I would eventually end up where I had always hoped. I didn’t. Though I hid it rather well, and still enjoyed my daily life, I was so very upset that what I always wanted was not turning out to be reality.

Towards the end of my junior year of college, in the middle of the pandemic, and most importantly, as I slowly was becoming Reformed, I gave my dreams to the Lord, truly and wholly. I decided that I would no longer retain resentment and restlessness as I also let go of my spiritual malaise and sought the truth with fervour.

The Lord is so good and gracious. Once I gave these dreams to Him, He showered me with such understanding. If I had gone where I wanted, I would not be where I was spiritually. He placed me exactly where He wanted me. He planted seeds of spiritual freedom at the schools I was at and watered these seeds in spite of myself. He drew me out of a shrouded understanding of salvation and the gifts of the Spirit to give me spiritual rest.

Though this might have happened eventually, it would have taken me so much longer if I was away at college. Truly, His thoughts and ways are higher than my own, and His sovereignty is always bound to glorify Himself and better me after His own heart.

And through all of this, He increased my joy. My daily happiness increased more and more. I can say, with all that is within me, that I have been happier and more joyful since this change. For the last four years, He has given beauty to my circumstances, and I rejoice exceedingly, I revel in His will, and it is good for me to do so.

It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your steadfast love in the morning, and Your faithfulness by night…For you, O LORD, have made me glad by Your work; at the works of Your hands I sing for joy.

Psalm 92:1-2, 4 (emphasis added)

If a young couple, freshly married and intoxicated with love for one another, can be happy in a one-room shack, simply because they are together, how much more the believer who has undeservedly been given the gift of eternal life? We have been given all that we could ever want or need in the gift of salvation; we are equipped better than no other generation has, with the fullness of the Spirit, the whole canon of Scripture, and the knowledge of orthodox church history. There is no room for dissatisfaction or resentment against the beautiful and perfect will of our Father.

And in all circumstances, we are to give thanks, for it is the will of our Lord. For in all circumstances, the joy of the Lord is our strength. In the darkest of nights, in the most painful of situations, and in the miry clay, He has lifted us out and set our feet on a rock and established our steps, giving us a new song (Ps. 40:2-3). He gives joy, peace, and strength to the weary. Whether we are in the lowest of valleys or the highest mountaintop, so long as we diligently pursue and practise gratitude, He is faithful to bring us joy.

The inverse of gratitude: a selfish, unhappy heart and an opposition to the things of God

While gratitude is at the core of living a biblical life, ingratitude is a reflection of the opposite. A lack of gratitude to the One who made us and is deserving of all praise is:

primal sin that motivates all of the various forms of wickedness that are on display in human conduct…For instance, if we are not grateful to God for all of the blessings that He has given us, we will quickly begin to feel as if we have been cheated somehow. This will blossom into covetousness as we envy others whom we perceive to be more blessed than we are, and we might even go further into theft or adultery, wherein we take things that are not rightfully ours.4

Ingratitude is an inherent part of disobedience to the first and greatest commandment: to love the Lord our God with all that we have, giving Him the honour and glory that He justly deserves.

For although they knew God, they did not honour Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened

Romans 1:21

Pride and vainglory begin to fester; a sense of entitlement is nurtured by resentment and discontent. As one begins to break the vertical commandments—that is, the ones related to our position toward God (1-4)—we begin to break the horizontal commandments and harm our neighbours (5-10), thereby breaking the second greatest command which is to love our neighbours as ourselves. Covetousness and greed grow, and what were once merely entertained thoughts become blatantly sinful acts. It is hard to break from this once such a pattern has been set. Even if we begin to realise the folly of our ways, we can harden our own hearts and continue in our spiral of sin, going deeper into darkness.

There is no true joy here. There can be no real rest. Most of the rich and famous who decry the Scriptures and show publicly, that they are in every way opposed to the will of God are not truly content—perhaps especially those who claim Christ, because their actions and ideologies are so diametrically opposed to Him. What status, acclaim, and wealth they have is never enough. It can never be enough.

For true satisfaction is found only in the Christ. When we know Him as Saviour, we develop gratitude. When we continue to practise gratitude, we grow in Christ. Truly, He is glorified out of grateful hearts.

May we be convicted of the seriousness of any ingratitude we shelter. Let us seek gratitude with our whole being.

Happy Thanksgiving!! May the Lord cultivate gratitude in our hearts this holiday season as we rest in the salvation of our King and the freedom of our land!

Marvel of Marvels

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