Attitude of Gratitude

 Time to record a talk I am giving tomorrow...

I was asked to give a talk on cultivating an attitude of gratitude and was given a quote by Thomas S. Monson.  He said, “We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude.  If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues.”  I thought it was interesting that I would be asked to give a talk on this subject as well as President Monson’s quote since I have been on an autobiography kick lately.  The last 2 books that I have read have been the books put out by Elizabeth Smart and Stephanie Nielson.  Elizabeth Smart being a kidnap victim and Stephanie Nielson a survivor of a fire that disfigured 80 % of her body.  These 2 girls had horrible things happen to their bodies and yet their books were full of thanksgiving to their Father in Heaven who had provided so much for them during their life changing experiences.  Even with what they had been through they can say now as President Monson said, “We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude.”

My first thought went to prayers when I started studying this topic.  What better way to thank our Heavenly Father than that of saying our daily, sincere prayers.  I then thought of the order in which our prayers are to be given.  Maybe we are told to thank our Father in Heaven for the daily blessing in our lives first, before asking for things we believe that are needed, because it reminds us that He is always blessing us.  For example, let’s say we have had a hard trial in our lives. Maybe it is a job loss.  We immediately want to go to our Father in Heaven to ask Him to send a job our way.  But wait.  We know we are taught to first address Heavenly Father in our prayers and give thanks before we ever ask for anything.  So we do just that.  We start off with the usual daily things we have.  He has blessed us with another day to live with our healthy families.  We are warm in our homes.  We have a running vehicle and the list goes on.  And somewhere along those thank yous, we realize that we were counseled to have food storage.  And we know right then and there that we are not being picked on.  We know of others in our same situation and suddenly we don’t feel so sorry for ourselves.  We know His hand is in our lives and we are grateful He prepared us years in advance as we built up our food storage. 

There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord for those things that we need but when we start a prayer in a certain order, what we set out for our original prayer to include, just might end up changing.  And now we are in a more positive state of mind. 

Spencer W. Kimball said, “Adults as well as the youth are often guilty, being disobedient and unthankful to their Heavenly Father who gives them all.  Many fail to show their gratitude through service, through family prayers, through the payment of their tithes, and in numerous other ways God has a right to expect.”

Here Spencer W. Kimball points out different ways we can express our gratitude to our Heavenly Father.  I wanted to add to his list.

David gave a talk a few weeks ago on the importance of journal keeping.  Early in our marriage, I decided that for one year I would begin each journal entry with what I was grateful for that day in particular.  I can still remember sitting at our dinner table, journal in front of me, and looking out the window.  It was raining outside.  A calm, silent rain.  I am a lover of loud thunderstorms but we were living in Rexburg, Idaho at the time and they don’t have those kinds of thunderstorms like I was used to in Oklahoma.  But I was still thankful for that rain.  It was peaceful and everything felt right.  It made for a much different and meaningful journal entry.

Another suggestion:  As a youth, I can remember a certain temple trip to Dallas, Texas.  As we were waiting to begin baptizing for the dead, a temple worker asked us all what we were thankful for.  The trick was that when she got to each of us we were not allowed to say we were thankful for the gospel or Jesus, or our family, etc…  We had to be creative and really think about it.  It was the first time in my life that I thought of how grateful I was for my bed.  Can you imagine sleeping on a floor every night?

I would like to touch back on prayer.  I was listening to a devotional once and the man speaking suggested setting up a time where you only thanked Heavenly Father in your prayers.  No asking for things.  He spoke of how he would do this on his way to work sometimes.  It peeked my interest because at that time I was traveling 30-40 minutes to my job.  I thought I could do this also.  An interesting thing happened.  At first, I was amazed at how hard it was.  You begin thanking Heavenly Father and before you know it, you are just naturally asking Him for things.  It was a habit.  I knew then that I had another thing to work on: eliminating repetition in my prayers.  But before long, I was finally able to give sincere, thankful prayers.  Repetition seemed to go away as I felt I was becoming that little child just learning how to pray.  You know the prayers I am talking about.  “Thank you Heavenly Father for bugs, and for flowers, and for rocks, and for grass and my new toy…..”

Another suggestion would be to change our casual conversations with others.  In Oklahoma I often heard people there saying things like, “You must have been listening to the spirit when you told me that.”  And then they would go on to explain to the other person how they were struggling with something in particular.  People in the Bible Belt easily put into their everyday conversations what the Lord had blessed them with. And they aren’t always members of the same church.  They just openly speak to each other that way when they feel they were blessed with something that could have only came from God.  It makes me think of a Psalm in 105:1-3

“O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name:  make known his deeds among the people.  Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works.  Glory ye in his holy name; let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.”

And most importantly, let us not forget that it is a commandment to be grateful. 

Marion G. Romney said, “The Lord puts the commandment to be thankful among with other strong commandments.  He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, with all they might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ though shalt serve him.  Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.   Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it.  Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.”  (D&C 59:5-7)  It is perfectly evident from this scripture that to thank the Lord in all things is not merely a courtesy.  It is a commandment as binding upon us as any other commandment.”