Attitude of Gratitude

Tom Lane

An attitude of gratitude is one of the greatest things we can impart to our children.  Psalm 100 tells us to come into God’s presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.  Gratitude in it’s simplest form is a heart of thankfulness that open doors with God.  It will also open doors with people.  It is more than a polite thing to do.  Expressions of thanks actually do things in the emotions that work as a key does in the ignition of a car to start receptiveness in the human heart. 

We live in a very negative world.  Research tells us that it takes seven positive inputs to overcome one negative input in our lives.  The reality is we get a lot of input when we fail but when we are doing great there is little praise and very little comment.  Praise is a form of encouragement and it also unlocks the heart.  The saying goes something like this, “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.”  Praise is one of the tangible ways we let people know we care.

Are you strategic in developing an attitude of gratitude?  Do you work to create an atmosphere of praise in your home?  Simple compliments that recognize how someone looks, how good the meal was, how clean the house is, how strait the bedroom looks, how nice the bed looks when it is made; they all go a long way to create and maintain an atmosphere of praise. 

Expressions of thanks aren’t trite instead they are forms that shape gratitude in the attitude of our children.  We must model expressions of appreciation for our children and then train them to do what we have modeled for them to see.  We must train them to say thanks when someone gives them something or complements them.  We must train them to send expressions of thanks by email, phone, or snail mail if an attitude of gratitude is to be developed in them.

Finally, we must monitor the critical comments and sarcastic humor in our family.  These forms of communication are like weeds in a garden.  If they are not contested they will increase in number and scope.  What might easily be contested at its inception becomes more difficult when it is allowed to grow over time.  If uncontested they grow in their impact to the point that gratitude and praise are chocked out of our home. 

Let’s think strategically as we work hard to maintain an attitude of gratitude in our home and create it in the heart of our children!