Grateful

             having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude (Colossians 2:7)

            Gratitude: thankfulness, or gratefulness, from the Latin word gratus "pleasing, thankful", is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, towards the giver of such gifts.

            Having just written about what I’m thankful for today, I seem to be stuck on the idea of gratitude, and the question whether God feels it. Before the accusations of heresy begin, let me establish a foundation to this discussion. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and has no need of anything from us. If God feels or shows gratitude, it is not based on His needing us to do something He can’t do better Himself.

            Gratitude is not something that others deserve from us. Too often, I hear people complain about someone’s lack of gratitude, “After all I’ve done for them!” They’re tempted to stop giving gifts to their children or grandchildren because the little brats never say thanks or send a thank you note. But while children and grandchildren need to learn about showing gratitude, giving someone something in the expectation of a return isn’t giving a gift. It’s payment for the expected return. God does not owe us a debt of gratitude. If anything, it’s the other way around, and ours is a debt we can’t hope to repay.

            At the same time, we often thank people for doing things we could do just as easily – or more easily – ourselves. I thank people for opening and holding one door even though I push the other open and walk through it. I thank people for handing me things I could have grabbed just as easily. We make a big deal out of thanking children for doing just about anything we want them to do – that’s positive reinforcement. I’ve been known to thank animals and inanimate objects. Again, it’s not out of a sense of debt, but simply because that’s the sort of person I am.

            So as I think of gratitude and God, I’m not 1/100 as grateful as I think I should be, but I also think that God’s 100% more grateful than He “should” be. I suspect that He is grateful because He is loving, and He is loving because that’s the sort of person He is. That means He’s grateful because that’s the sort of person He is.