Gratitude Regardless of How You Feel

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Here are three spiritual moves that anyone, Christian or not, can take. I’ll use the passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians 5:16-24 to make this point because I am a Christian. I’ll trust that people of other worldviews can translate Paul’s insight into their own belief system. 

#1 Gratitude in all circumstances

These verses come from the end of the letter, where St. Paul urged his fellow Christians, “In all circumstances give thanks.” But all too often, we are joyful in good circumstances but give no thanks while we are sad in difficult circumstances and only then seek help. The first spiritual move, therefore, is to push beyond the alternating emotions of joy and sadness or anger (or both!) and add gratitude in all circumstances. 

#2 Test everything and retain what is good

The second move is, as St Paul says, to “test everything and retain what is good.” That requires wise judgment, but the alternating experiences of joy and sadness can sway our judgment. We judge good whatever prolongs joy and what eliminates sadness. But what is truly good does not always fit our emotional frame of the moment. In order to “test everything and retain what is good,” we sometimes need patience to tolerate sadness and anger and need thoughtfulness about the source of joy.  

#3 Give and receive love

Gratitude helps us see the cause of joy and tolerate sadness and anger to judge accurately the cause of pain. These two spiritual moves support the third: to give and receive love. St. Paul promises the Thessalonians that the “God of peace” will make them “perfect in holiness and … spirit, soul, and body … preserved blameless.” Putting it all together, a Christian’s offer of gratitude helps them to see God’s offer of friendship.

Putting it into practice

Making these spiritual moves might sound complicated, but there is a “hack.” Pick a moment every day, set an alarm and express gratitude at that moment regardless of how you feel. You will probably become more aware of your cycles of joy and sadness or anger. Becoming more aware of these emotions will make you a better judge of whatever is good in the persons and situations you encounter. Becoming a better judge of what is truly good makes you fit in “spirit, soul, and body” to give and receive love, or to put it in more familiar terms, to be a better friend.