Discover how gratitude transforms from simple thankfulness into a grace-filled way of life. Reflections inspired by Cornelius Plantinga and Diana Butler Bass.
🕯️ A Season for Thanks
As Thanksgiving approaches, many of us pause to name what we’re grateful for—family, friends, the comforts of home, or simply the chance to rest and gather. But beyond the feast and familiar words of blessing, gratitude offers us something deeper.
Gratitude is not just a feeling we visit once a year; it’s a way of seeing and being that reshapes how we live. Recently, I’ve been exploring this through two insightful books: Gratitude by Cornelius Plantinga and Grateful by Diana Butler Bass. Each, in their own way, reveals how gratitude is both a spiritual practice and a transformative way to participate in life itself.
🌿 Gratitude vs. Entitlement
Plantinga offers a clear and challenging reflection: gratitude and entitlement cannot coexist.
Gratitude recognizes that what we have—our life, our relationships, our abilities—are gifts. Entitlement, on the other hand, insists that we are owed something without having earned it.
Gratitude, he writes, is the soil in which appreciation grows. When we appreciate something, we naturally take care of it. That simple truth echoes through all areas of life: we take care of the things we care about.
Entitlement makes us restless. Gratitude makes us attentive. One demands. The other delights.
And when we practice gratitude, even quietly in our hearts, we begin to see the abundance that already surrounds us—something entitlement can never do.
🌾 Beyond Etiquette
Diana Butler Bass writes that gratitude is often mistaken for good manners—something polite people do to acknowledge a favor. But gratitude is not a transaction or a social nicety.
True gratitude, she suggests, is participation in what she calls the “divine economy of grace.” It’s not about paying debts or settling accounts; it’s about entering into the rhythm of giving and receiving freely.
Bass connects this to the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In ancient times, every seven years debts were released, and every forty-nine years—a Jubilee—everything was restored.
Gratitude, then, is a kind of release. It frees us from the weight of what is owed, and returns us to the flow of grace.
When we live with gratitude, we stop measuring worth by what we’ve earned and begin noticing how much has been freely given.
🌸 Duty and Delight
Both writers point toward the same truth from different directions: gratitude is both a calling and a joy.
Plantinga reminds us that gratitude is not only right but also just—it’s the moral and spiritual duty of every soul to give thanks. This idea echoes in the liturgy:
“It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give thanks.”
Bass takes this same truth and breathes into it new life. She writes that gratitude liberates us—it changes the posture of our hearts so that giving thanks becomes not an obligation but a delight.
When we learn to live in gratitude, duty becomes devotion. We no longer give thanks because we must; we give thanks because we are moved to.
🌻 Practicing the Grace of Gratitude
If gratitude is both grace and practice, how do we live it out?
Here are a few simple ways to begin:
- Begin and end the day with thanks. Name one thing you’re grateful for before your feet touch the floor in the morning and before your head meets the pillow at night.
- Express gratitude to someone directly. A handwritten note, a quiet message, or even a look that says, I see you. I appreciate you.
- Care for what you’ve been given. Whether it’s your body, your home, your work, or your relationships—tending is a form of thanksgiving.
- Keep a gratitude list of the ordinary. Fresh air, warm light, the sound of laughter, the smell of coffee. These small things root us in the present moment.
Gratitude transforms our daily routines into sacred ground.
🕊️ Living in the Flow of Grace
This Thanksgiving—and beyond—it’s worth remembering that gratitude isn’t reserved for special occasions. It’s a posture of the heart, an awareness of grace in the midst of ordinary life.
When we live in gratitude, we begin to see differently. We notice the gifts that were always there. We soften toward others and toward ourselves.
May our thanks this week extend beyond our tables—into our words, our work, and the quiet ways we care for one another.
-laura