Three Things

A Reflection on The Christian Practice of Gratitude in a World of Suffering

On Sunday, I preached about gratitude for the blessings God has given us. Since then, many of you have reached out to tell me that something in that message spoke to where you are. But I want to clarify something, because I would never want us to confuse gratitude with pretending that everything is all right.

Saying that we are blessed does not mean that we do not suffer.

Good Christian theology has never promised us a life without suffering. Jesus certainly does not. He tells us to take up our cross and follow him. The great promise of our faith is not that Christians somehow escape the pain of being human. The promise is that God enters it. In Jesus Christ, God takes human suffering upon himself, carries it through the Cross, and ultimately redeems it in Resurrection.

That distinction matters, because gratitude is not an escape from suffering. It is a way of refusing to let suffering have the final word.

Gratitude will not change the diagnosis. It may not repair the estrangement. It does not magically remove fear, worry, loneliness, grief, longing, or unmet desires. But gratitude can change the place those things occupy within us. It can interrupt the endless cycle of rumination in which our minds return again and again to what is wrong, what is missing, what we fear, and what we cannot control.

Scripture repeatedly teaches us another way.

Paul tells the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18). Notice that he does not say to give thanks for every circumstance. There are things in this world for which we should never be thankful. Rather, he tells us to give thanks inall circumstances. Even here. Even now. Even in this, God remains God, grace remains grace, and love remains love.

Likewise, Paul tells the Philippians, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Thanksgiving and petition belong together.

I have found that to be profoundly important in my own prayer life. Usually, I remember to pray most urgently when something has gone wrong. Something frightens me. Something hurts. Something needs fixing. Someone I love needs help. And so I have developed a simple discipline: before I begin asking God for anything, I make myself name three things for which I am thankful.

Three things.

Sometimes they are enormous. Sometimes they are wonderfully ordinary. But the practice forces me to remember something my anxiety would rather let me forget: God was good before this problem appeared. God is good while I am carrying it. God will still be good when I cannot yet see what comes next.

That changes prayer.

Too often, we can unconsciously imagine God as a kind of celestial vending machine. Insert prayer, make selection, receive desired outcome. Janis Joplin captured the absurdity wonderfully when she sang, “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?”

But the Christian life begins somewhere else entirely. Before we ask, God has already given.

Before we recognized grace, grace was there.

Before we learned to love God, God loved us.

Before we knew how to pray, the Spirit was already praying within us “with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

The psalmist therefore does not merely tell us to ask. He tells us, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2). Perhaps that is one of the great spiritual dangers of suffering: we forget. Pain narrows our vision until the wound becomes the whole landscape.

Gratitude widens it again.

It allows us to say: Yes, this hurts—and I am loved. Yes, I am frightened—and I am not alone. Yes, something is missing—and much has also been given. Yes, I am carrying a cross—and the Cross is not the end of the Christian story.

Jesus himself practiced thanksgiving. Before feeding the multitude, he gave thanks (John 6:11). At the Last Supper, with betrayal, abandonment, suffering, and death immediately before him, Jesus took bread and gave thanks (Luke 22:19). Indeed, our central act of Christian worship takes its very name from thanksgiving: Eucharistia—thanksgiving.

Every time we gather around the altar, therefore, we practice seeing the world eucharistically. We bring before God our suffering and our joy, our scarcity and our abundance, our wounds and our hopes, and we discover again that everything begins with gift.

This is why gratitude is not shallow optimism. It is a spiritual discipline of remembering.

It is remembering that goodness still exists when suffering tells us otherwise. It is remembering mercy when resentment seems easier. It is remembering abundance when fear insists there will never be enough. It is remembering grace when shame tells us we are defined by our failures.

And perhaps, over time, gratitude teaches us to recognize the kingdom of God already breaking into this world: in love and companionship, in joy and laughter, in forgiveness unexpectedly offered, in generosity freely given, in beauty we did not create, and in goodness we did not earn.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6).

Not only on the good days.

All the days.

So bring God your petitions. Bring God the diagnosis, the estrangement, the fear, the worry, the longing, the grief. God desires all of it. But alongside those petitions, practice thanksgiving.

Before you ask, remember.

Name three things.

What has God given me? Where have I encountered grace? Where, even here, can I see goodness and mercy?

And perhaps, slowly, we will discover that gratitude does not make the cross disappear. Instead, it teaches us to see beyond it—to recognize that suffering is real, but it is not ultimate; death is real, but it does not get the last word.

The last word belongs to Resurrection.

And for that, thanks be to God.

Pax et Bonum!

Fr. Ben