Posted: Feb 1
Gratitude is Good for Your Soul
By Discipleship & Generosity, Year Round & Holistic Stewardship
Two and one-half years ago, a parish in our diocese focused on gratitude as being as essential aspect of Christian stewardship. In fact, to remind members of the parish about the importance of gratitude, they gave away purple wristbands that said, “Gratitude is good for your soul.” When I visited the parish that November the stewardship chair gave me one of the wristbands. I wore it until one very hot day last summer it broke. But I wore it as a daily reminder about the importance of gratitude.
As the season of Lent approaches, one of the daily spiritual disciplines I plan to embrace is to pray the wonderful prayer of thanksgiving found on page 836 in the Book of Common Prayer.
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.
We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care that surrounds us on every side.
We thank you for setting us at tasks that demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
We thank you also for those disappointment and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word, and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation for his dying through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.
Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and all places, may give thanks to you in all things.
Amen.
This prayer reminds us that everything is a gift from God. In this prayer we are invited to give God thanks for all that is. We thank God for creation, the wonderful earth in which we live. We are invited to thank God for family and friends who love and support us, and we are reminded that our earthly accomplishments are only possible through the gifts God entrusts to us. Moreover we are invited to thank God for the disappointments and failures, not that they are things God did to us, but that they remind us of our total dependence on God. We give thanks for Jesus Christ who leads us each step of the way on our earthly journey. And finally, we give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit that empowers us to be the faithful, loving stewards God created us to be.
Gratitude draws us out of our self-centered nature and leads us to a focus on the loving God who gives us all that we have. May we strive to be thankful stewards during this coming Lenten season and always.
Bruce Rockwell, Assistant to the Bishop for Stewardship
Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts
brsteward@comcast.net
