Learning Gratitude

I have always heard you cannot learn to swim on the coffee table.  It must be true.  I know I am having trouble learning how to play my mandolin while it stays in its case in the corner.  I watch musicians make music and I marvel at their fingers moving on the fret board, but watching is not moving me any closer to playing it.  I have a book about writing which tells me that a writer writes at least six hundred words a day even if they end up in the throwaway pile.  Wanting to do something never takes the place of doing it.   

One of things we would all choose to do is to live with a spirit of gratitude.  The preacher's sermon this past week was in some ways like the prelude to singing the songs of Thanksgiving in a few days.  There is no need to wait for a particular day to be thankful.  The Word of God calls us to live, "giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."  (Ephesians 5:20). The words, "at all time and for everything," makes it a very big order.  It is almost as big and impossible a thing as Jesus telling us to "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."  (Matthew 5:48). When we read such passages and grab hold of such thoughts, it is not unlikely for us to wonder how such a life can  be lived.   

Whenever I find myself before this word about being grateful at all times and in every situation, I reach for the book entitled, "1000 Gifts," by Ann Voskamp.  For those who want to live with gratitude, she points to a very simple enabling discipline which she calls practice.  We learn to be content in all things, we learn to be grateful in all things by practicing.  Her words and the way she modeled her own practicing enabled me to start writing what I have come to know as a "Gratitude Journal."  The goal is to write down the gifts of each day.  One of those gifts might be listening to the music of a songbird, or talking on the phone with a friend, or being able get out of bed.  She has taught me to write down daily gifts as a way of learning how to be grateful and I have found that it works.