How to be thankful: a daily gratitude practice

Be specific, and expect to forget

Psalm 103 begins with a command the writer gives to himself: do not forget the benefits. The assumption built into that line is that forgetting is the default. Gratitude is not the natural state of a human being; remembering is a job.

So make it concrete. Three particular things, named with enough detail that they could only have happened to you today. Not health, family, work, but the coffee that was still hot, the message from someone you had not heard from, the fact that the pain was slightly less than yesterday.

Vague gratitude evaporates on contact with a hard day. Specific gratitude is much harder to argue with.

• Three items. Not ten. Ten becomes a chore by Thursday.
• Written, if you can. The hand slows the mind down.
• Small and recent beats large and abstract.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—

Salmo 103:2, BSB

Thankful in, not thankful for

Paul writes that we should give thanks in all circumstances. The preposition is doing a great deal of work and it is worth getting right, because the misreading of this verse has hurt a lot of people.

It does not say to be thankful for everything that happens to you. Nobody is being asked to be grateful for a diagnosis, an abusive marriage, a child's death, a job lost unfairly. To thank God for evil would be to call it good, and Scripture never does that.

In means alongside. Even here, in this, there is still something true and something given, and naming it keeps the hard thing from becoming the only thing you can see. Gratitude sits next to grief. It does not replace it, and it is not a cure.

Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18, BSB

Attach it to a threshold you already cross

Psalm 100 pictures thanksgiving as the thing you do while going through the gates, which is a useful image for anyone trying to build a habit. Gratitude works best fixed to a doorway you already pass through every day.

Pick one you cannot skip. The first cup of coffee. The moment the kettle boils. Sitting down in the car before you start it. The habit fails when it depends on you remembering; it holds when it is welded to something automatic.

Keep it to sixty seconds at first. A practice you complete is worth more than one you admire.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name.

Salmo 100:4, BSB

Let it change how you ask for things

In Philippians, thanksgiving is placed inside the act of asking: bring your requests, with thanksgiving. The two are not separate exercises. Gratitude is the tone in which the asking happens.

Practically, this means putting one line of thanks in front of every request. Thank you for what came through last week. Now here is what I need today. It changes the posture of the prayer without changing its honesty, and it quietly reminds you that you are not talking to a stranger.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Philippians 4:6, BSB

Say it out loud to a person

Ten men were healed in Luke's account and one came back, praising God loudly and thanking Jesus to his face. The other nine were not ungrateful people; they were nine people who did not turn around.

That is most of us. We feel it, we mean it, and we never say it. So make one part of your practice outward: a message, a sentence at dinner, a phone call to someone who will be startled to receive it.

Gratitude spoken to another person does something that gratitude kept internal does not. It lands on someone.

When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice. He fell facedown at Jesus’ feet in thanksgiving to Him—and he was a Samaritan.

Luke 17:15-16, BSB

When you cannot feel it at all

Some mornings there is nothing. In Colossians, thankfulness appears as something woven through ordinary speech, work and singing rather than as an emotional state to be achieved, which means you can do it while feeling flat.

On those days, say the three things out loud anyway and let them be small: I am warm, I have water, that phone call is over. You are not lying about how you feel; you are refusing to let one true thing be the only true thing.

And if nothing has felt good for weeks, if you have lost the ability to enjoy anything at all, that is worth taking to a doctor rather than to a longer gratitude list. Loss of pleasure is a recognised symptom, not a character flaw, and nothing on this site is medical advice.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, for to this you were called as members of one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Colossians 3:15-17, BSB