To encourage and strengthen one another through a tumultuous year, our sisters in the Champaign Church of Christ (Illinois, USA) wrote and shared their devotional thoughts through a “Women’s Ministry Minute” on their church’s website during 2020.  The quiet time devotionals were written by and for Christian women to build each other up in faith as we all focus our hearts on Jesus.

Here are a few of the devotionals from the series.  To see more, visit the Champaign Church website:  https://champaignchurch.org/womens-ministry-minute

Gratitude Honors God

By Patty Cochran

Recently, I restarted keeping a gratitude journal.  I had been effectively ignoring a small voice for several months that kept urging me toward gratitude.  A few weeks ago, I could no longer ignore that voice.  Gratitude journals take work and consistency, and I hadn’t been ready to do either.  After all, I wasn’t ungrateful, but the fact is that I needed to be reminded of what I have to be grateful for.  There is so much that is unpleasant, uncertain, scary, and sad in our world today that I need to focus on what is good, right, and pleasant. 

I started my first gratitude journal in 2011 after having been in a car accident that changed my life due to a spinal cord injury and being in a lot of pain. At that time, a dear friend shared her concern that I was becoming depressed.  Since I didn’t want to deal with pain, other symptoms, and depression, I decided to go to the Bible to find some help.  This passage is what first caught my attention.

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

Romans 1:21 (ESV)

This passage kept going over and over through my mind for months.  I decided that futile thinking and darkened hearts sounded like depression.  The question that I asked myself was, “Would giving thanks to God change my perspective on my life?”  That’s when I started my own gratitude experiment.  I started keeping a gratitude journal and studying gratitude in the Bible.  

Before long, writing in my gratitude journal was one of the most peaceful times of my day.  I would sit with a cup of tea in the evening before going to bed, while all was quiet, and reflect on what I had to be grateful for that day.  Looking back on some of those posts makes me smile today. I was grateful for the ways that my husband served me and was so considerate.  There was gratitude for the growth I saw in my children.  Joys were considered and celebrated.  Friends were honored for their service.  

As I read those posts, what stood out the most was that each day I had at least one thing that I was grateful for: who God is, His character, and how He showed His love to me.  That was a real eye opener to me as I read it today.  My current gratitude journal was not producing the same sense of peace.  I have been completely forgetting to be thankful to God for being God!  

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

Psalms 86:12-13 (ESV)

The whole point of being grateful is to honor God.  I will be making a course adjustment today.  I will not only be thankful for the beauty and selflessness of others, but I will be thankful for the beauty and selflessness of God, for his steadfast love and deliverance.