There are those for whom gratitude comes naturally, and there are those for whom it is a struggle. While gratitude comes fairly easy for me, it has definitely become one of my spiritual disciplines; for me, gratitude is a choice. Gratitude is an important and vital choice that I have to make because it could be very easy to fall into a cynicism about a variety of things in life, and, at least for me, this cynicism is never what my Christian faith calls me to.
This evening’s psalm is a psalm full of gratitude. It goes through the big things and the small things; it goes through our human life and the world of created earth. God has continually, the psalmist sings, been faithful to God’s creation. God has been faithful in God’s forgiveness, in acts of power, and in acts of grace. God has done awesome deeds for God’s creation.
There are times when I wonder what it would look like to structure our prayers of praise in the same manner of a particular psalm. What could you sing about when you are reminded of God’s forgiveness? What comes to mind when you think of God in God’s goodness using power in this world? Can you even begin to recount all the ways in which you have experienced God’s grace?