Từ gratia trong tiếng Latin bao hàm ý tưởng biết ơn và thừa nhận những điều tốt đẹp trong cuộc sống của chúng ta. Chấp nhận sự nhấn mạnh như vậy có thể thúc đẩy chúng ta bước vào năm sắp tới với sức mạnh và hy vọng mới.
Nghiên cứu khoa học hỗ trợ lợi ích sức khỏe của một trái tim biết ơn. Lòng biết ơn gắn liền một cách mạnh mẽ và nhất quán với hạnh phúc lớn hơn. Nó giúp mọi người cảm nhận những cảm xúc tích cực hơn, tận hưởng những trải nghiệm tốt đẹp, cải thiện sức khỏe, đối phó với nghịch cảnh và xây dựng các mối quan hệ bền chặt.
Hai nhà tâm lý học, Tiến sĩ Robert A. Emmons của Đại học California và Tiến sĩ Michael E. McCullough của Đại học Miami, đã thực hiện nhiều nghiên cứu về lòng biết ơn. Trong một nghiên cứu, họ yêu cầu những người tham gia viết một vài câu mỗi tuần, tập trung vào các chủ đề cụ thể.
Một nhóm viết về những điều họ biết ơn đã xảy ra trong tuần. Nhóm thứ hai viết về những điều khó chịu hàng ngày hoặc những điều khiến họ không hài lòng. Người thứ ba viết về những sự kiện đã ảnh hưởng đến họ mà không nhấn mạnh đến việc tích cực hay tiêu cực. Sau 10 tuần, những người viết về lòng biết ơn lạc quan hơn và cảm thấy tốt hơn về cuộc sống của mình. Điều đáng ngạc nhiên là họ cũng tập thể dục nhiều hơn và ít đến gặp bác sĩ hơn những người tập trung vào các nguyên nhân khiến tình trạng trầm trọng thêm.
Một nhà nghiên cứu hàng đầu khác trong lĩnh vực này, Tiến sĩ Martin EP Seligman, nhà tâm lý học tại Đại học Pennsylvania, đã thử nghiệm tác động của các biện pháp can thiệp khác nhau đối với 411 người. Khi nhiệm vụ của tuần là viết và gửi thư cảm ơn tới một người chưa bao giờ được cảm ơn đúng mức vì lòng tốt của họ, những người tham gia ngay lập tức cho thấy điểm hạnh phúc tăng lên rất nhiều. Tác động này lớn hơn bất kỳ nhiệm vụ nào khác.
Các nghiên cứu khác đã xem xét lòng biết ơn có thể cải thiện mối quan hệ như thế nào. Một nghiên cứu về các cặp đôi cho thấy những cá nhân dành thời gian để bày tỏ lòng biết ơn đối với bạn đời của mình không chỉ cảm thấy tích cực hơn đối với người kia mà còn cảm thấy thoải mái hơn khi bày tỏ mối quan tâm về mối quan hệ của họ.
Tại sao lòng biết ơn lại có tác động mạnh mẽ đến sức khỏe của chúng ta như vậy? Với lòng biết ơn, chúng ta trân trọng những gì mình có thay vì luôn tìm kiếm điều gì đó mới mẻ với hy vọng nó sẽ khiến chúng ta hạnh phúc hơn. Chúng ta tập trung vào những gì dồi dào hay thay vì những gì chúng ta thiếu . Với lòng biết ơn, một nửa chiếc cốc rỗng sẽ tràn đầy.
Mặc dù lúc đầu có vẻ lúng túng nhưng thói quen nuôi dưỡng lòng biết ơn sẽ ngày càng mạnh mẽ hơn khi thực hành. Khi chúng ta thừa nhận những điều tốt đẹp trong cuộc sống của mình và nhận ra rằng nguồn gốc của phần lớn những điều tốt đẹp đó nằm ở bên ngoài chúng ta, chúng ta kết nối với điều gì đó lớn lao hơn—dù là với người khác, thiên nhiên hay một sức mạnh cao hơn.
Dưới đây là một số gợi ý để giải phóng sức mạnh của lòng biết ơn:
- Viết một lời cảm ơn. Gửi ít nhất một lá thư cảm ơn mỗi tháng. Kết nối lại với ai đó trong quá khứ, người đã ban phước cho cuộc sống của bạn.
- Giữ một cuốn nhật ký biết ơn. Hãy tạo thói quen viết ra một vài món quà nhỏ mà bạn nhận được mỗi ngày.
- Đếm Phước lành của bạn. Chọn một thời điểm mỗi tuần để liệt kê những phước lành của bạn. Bạn có thể đếm được bao nhiêu?
- Trả nó về phía trước. Lòng biết ơn và sự cho đi luôn đi đôi với nhau. Giúp đỡ ai đó (ẩn danh) như một cách thể hiện sự cảm ơn vì đã nhiều lần người khác giúp đỡ bạn
- Hãy lưu tâm đến thời điểm này. Tập trung vào những điều đơn giản hàng ngày mà bạn biết ơn chẳng hạn như hơi ấm của mặt trời, âm thanh dễ chịu, v.v. Hãy dâng lên một lời cầu nguyện cảm ơn bằng hơi thở.
Melodie Beattie đã viết những điều sau đây về sức mạnh của một trái tim biết ơn:
“Lòng biết ơn mở khóa sự toàn vẹn của cuộc đời. Nó biến những điều chúng ta có thành đủ, và hơn thế. Nó biến sự phủ nhận thành sự chấp nhận, sự hỗn loạn thành trật tự, sự bối rối thành sự rõ ràng. Nó có thể biến một bữa ăn thành một bữa tiệc, một ngôi nhà thành tổ ấm, một người lạ thành bạn bè. Lòng biết ơn làm cho quá khứ của chúng ta có ý nghĩa, mang lại hòa bình cho ngày hôm nay và tạo ra tầm nhìn cho ngày mai.”
The Benefits of a Grateful Heart
A grateful heart is a feeling, a mindset, a way of living, and a tool to enrich one’s spiritual life123. It is associated with positive virtues like humility, faith, courage, happiness, and love4. It also helps us acknowledge God as our Provider and appreciate the blessings in our lives, both big and small5.
Each year we close the calendar with an emphasis on gratitude and giving to others. The Latin word gratiaencompasses the idea of being grateful and acknowledging the goodness in our lives. Embracing such an emphasis can propel us into the upcoming year with renewed strength and hope.
Scientific research supports the health benefits of a grateful heart. Gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. It helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity and build strong relationships.
Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have done much research on gratitude. In one study, they asked the participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics.
One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had displeased them. The third wrote about events that had affected them with no emphasis on being positive or negative. After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.
Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of different interventions on 411 people. When the week’s assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other assignment.
Other studies have looked at how gratitude can improve relationships. A study of couples found that individuals who took time to express gratitude for their partner not only felt more positive toward the other person but also felt more comfortable expressing concerns about their relationship.
Why does gratitude have such a powerful impact on our health? With gratitude we appreciate what we have instead of always reaching for something new in the hopes it will make us happier. We focus on what is abundant instead of what we lack. With gratitude, half empty cups fill to overflowing.
Though it may seem awkward at first, the habit of cultivating gratitude grows stronger with practice. When we acknowledge the goodness in our lives and recognize that the source of much of that goodness lies outside ourselves, we connect to something larger—whether to other people, nature or a higher power.
Here are a few suggestions for unleashing the power of gratitude:
- Write a thank-you note. Send at least one appreciation letter each month. Reconnect with someone from the past who has blessed your life.
- Keep a gratitude journal. Make it a habit to write down a few small gifts you receive each day.
- Count your blessings. Pick a time every week to enumerate your blessings. How high can you count?
- Pay it forward. Gratitude and giving go hand-in-hand. Help someone (anonymously) as a way of showing thanks for the many times others have helped you
- Be mindful about the moment. Focus on the everyday, simple things you are grateful for such as the warmth of the sun, a pleasant sound, etc. Offer up a breathe prayer of thanks.
Melodie Beattie penned the following about the power of a grateful heart:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
The Power of a Thankful Heart
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances;for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
It’s Not Always Easy to Give Thanks
But this is the very thing we must do in order to see God’s will accomplished in our lives.
This is how we move into higher realms of faith for ourselves, for our city, and for our nation. When we give thanks in the midst of difficulty, we bring pleasure to God’s heart and breakthrough begins. He is looking for people who live in a realm of praise and thanksgiving where the enemy no longer has an ability to hold or manipulate. Satan is defeated when we have a thankful heart because thankfulness during difficulty is a sacrifice pleasing to God. Are you thankful?
Are you thankful for your present circumstances?
Are you thankful for your salvation, your friendships, and your job?
Are you thankful for the way God made you?
Thankfulness is a Key to Your Life
It is the key that turns your situation around because it changes you, your outlook, and your attitude. There is power in a thankful heart. Thanksgiving brings contentment. An attitude of thanksgiving accepts and embraces God’s will. Begin to thank God for all the blessings he has given instead of dwelling on the negative. Discontent dries up the soul. Look at what Elisabeth Elliott, who lost her husband on the mission field and faced multitudes of hardships, says about loving God’s will and being content:
To love God is to love His will. It is to wait quietly for life to be measured by one who knows us through and through. It is to be content with His timing and His wise apportionment. It is to follow in the steps of the Master, as did Paul, who was able to say that he had learned contentment no matter what the circumstances. His circumstances when he wrote that? Prison. No easy lesson, but great gain, which is the sum of godliness plus contentment. (1 Timothy 6:6)
Look at the Example of Jesus
He followed the will of His Father to the very end. He obeyed without complaint. In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul says that we should have that same attitude. Jesus made Himself nothing and took on the very nature of a servant. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death. We also are to have this same attitude with a humble and thankful acceptance of God’s will for our lives. Jesus embraced hardship without a complaint.
The Duke of Wellington was a British military leader who regretted that he had not learned the secret of praise during his lifetime. He had many great accomplishments and even defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. He was a brilliant and demanding man and when he was older, he realized that there were areas in his life that needed to change. In his old age a woman asked him this question, “What would you do differently if you had your life to live over again?”
He thought carefully and said, “I would give more praise.”
This is a lesson for all of us.
To learn to be people of praise and thanksgiving to God all the days of our lives would be a great accomplishment. There is greatness and happiness in thanksgiving.
“Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world?… It is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it… Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it turns all that it touches into happiness.” —William Law
David writes in Psalm 116:17, “I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the LORD.” Did you know that thanking God for a difficulty is actually an offering that He highly values? You are bringing a gift of thanks to Him. It is so easy to complain. It is so easy to point the finger and find fault. But to come with the opposite attitude and give thanks brings breakthrough and joyful contentment.
How to Practice Thankfulness
Let each of us seek to have an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving, and rise to a new level of holiness. Here are some ways to practice this attitude in everyday life:
Thank and praise God for everything in your life.
Thank Him for even the difficulties. It is a sacrifice to do this but He can turn troubles into triumph.
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Hebrews 13:15)
Don’t allow yourself to complain about anything.
During the difficult times, be very careful to watch your tongue. Instead of complaining, think of ways you can verbally offer God the sacrifice of thanksgiving.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. (Philippians 2:14-15)
Don’t compare yourself with others.
Don’t wish your life were different. God knows what is best. The Bible says that having a thankful heart is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. When we begin to thank God for what we have, rather than comparing ourselves with others, it opens the door for God’s blessings.
Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else. (Galatians 6:4)
The enemy is fighting hard with fiery darts of discouragement and lies. The way we will begin to deal with the lies and the vicious ways he tries to destroy our joy is through the power of a thankful heart. As we cultivate a lifestyle of worship and praise in the magnificent splendor of God, we will be able to break through the strategies of the enemy. A worshipful and thankful life permeates the atmosphere with the presence of God, because worship is the atmosphere where God’s truth dwells.
“God smiles when we praise and thank Him continually. Few things feel better than receiving heartfelt praise and appreciation from someone else. God loves it, too… An amazing thing happens when we offer praise and thanksgiving to God. When we give God enjoyment, our own hearts are filled with joy.” —William Law
4 Benefits of a Thankful Heart
1. Pride decreases—Humility increases. One of the main stumbling blocks to cultivating a thankful heart is pride. There is a tendency in all of us to take credit for our success.
However, a thankful heart recognizes that all good things come from the hand of a sovereign God and that without his mercy, nothing good is possible. We are reminded in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
In an article titled “The Art of Being a Big Shot,” Howard Butt, a prominent Christian businessman, said these words:
“It is my pride that makes me independent of God. It’s appealing to me to feel that I am the master of my fate, that I run my own life, call my own shots, go at it alone. But that feeling is my basic dishonesty. I can’t go at it alone. I have to get help from other people, and I can’t ultimately rely on myself. I’m dependent on God for my next breath. It is dishonest of me to pretend that I’m anything but a man—weak and limited…When I am conceited, I am lying to myself. I am pretending to be God and not man. My pride is the idolatrous worship of myself. And that is the national religion of Hell!”
Thanksgiving, however, is the perfect cure for pride. A constant acknowledgment of the fact that all we have is a result of God’s grace will lead us to be more humble.
2. Complaining decreases—Contentment increases. If we are continually thanking God for what he has done and is doing in our lives, we will not fall victim to the sin of complaining.
Complaining is not stating the truth about a particular situation that is genuinely wrong. Rather complaining [or grumbling] is an attitude that questions God’s sovereignty over the affairs of our life. It is an attitude that expresses itself in the following manner: “If God loves me, how can he let this happen to me?” Even if we don’t verbally express our complaining [some are introverts], it is still sinful.
Can sinful creatures [that includes all of us], really complain in the light of our sins as Lamentations 3:39 points out, “Why should the living complain when punished for their sins?” If we really understand that we do not deserve any good thing as a result of our sins, we would be amazed at God’s mercy in our lives—be content and thankful in all circumstances and continually say, “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing” [Psa 23:1].
3. Doubt in God decreases—Trust in God increases. A significant obstacle to trusting God at all times is the lack of a thankful spirit. However, thanksgiving provides the perfect cure for this problem.
Paul could trust God in all of his trials because he always recalled God’s past deliverances and thus could confidently trust in God for the future as well. Notice his words, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [who] has delivered us from such a deadly peril [past], and he will deliver us again [future]“ [2 Cor 1:3, 10].
A thankful spirit that continually reflects on God’s past mercies is strengthened to rely on God for all future needs and thus protected from falling victim to the sin of doubt, despair, and taking short-cuts.
4. Worry decreases—Peace increases. One of the drawbacks of Christian living is the tendency to have an unhealthy focus on the negatives and not take enough time to thank God for his blessings. And such an attitude is the perfect recipe for worry to rule in our hearts. However, God’s word has a cure for worry: Have a thankful heart, as seen in Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” And when thanksgiving accompanies our prayers, our hearts are free from anxiety as the “peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus” [Phil 4:7].
And to experience these benefits, we should cultivate a thankful heart. And that can be done as we continuously:
(1) Keep reflecting on the cross and
(2) Incorporate thanksgiving as a part of our regular prayer.
