THE POWER OF PRAISE AND GRATITUDE

(Preached on Sunday, September 12, 2004)

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights!”

-Psalm 148:1

 

In one of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips, Lucy shares a tender moment with Charlie Brown.

Lucy is plucking the petals of a daisy saying, as she glances affectionately at Charlie Brown seated comfortably under the shade of a tree,

“He loves me, he loves me not;

“He loves me, he loves me not;

“He loves me, he loves me not;

“He loves me, he loves me not;

“He loves me!!!”

“Charlie Brown, you love me!”

Charlie Brown responds, “Gosh, Lucy, I could have told you that!”

Remorsefully, Lucy replies, “Well, why didn’t you, Charlie Brown?  Why didn’t you?”

 

This is one of the great tragedies of our lives as human creatures: we miss many, many opportunities to share love, share feelings, share goodness and affirmation with one another.

In the process we miss the power of praise and gratitude.

Two qualities vitally important to building a community of honesty, to building a church.

We need praise.

We need to give it as a proper response to people, to God, and to events as they unfold around us.

To be tightfisted about praise is to be half alive, with eyes squinting, with heart and mind fiercely determined to shun beauty.

But we need to be on the receiving end of praise, too, because without it we wither and die.

 

This is true medically, as well as theologically.

Deepak Chopra is a renowned medical doctor, teacher, and author who brings together the latest scientific insights of quantum physics and molecular biology with the ancient wisdom of India.

He talks about heart disease and how studies show that the most significant factor in heart disease is not diet or exercise or even family history but one single thing: the person’s perception that their lives are happy!

Whether they see goodness in their lives.

 

That is what praise is all about: seeing the goodness in life around us — in ourselves, in others, and in God.

That is why the Psalms are full of calls for us to “Praise God!”

Because praise has power to shape our lives.

When we are looking for good, we are less likely to be focusing on the negative, the bad, and we will be happier, healthier, more positive people.

As a result we will be more loving and we will find ourselves fulfilling our purpose as creatures in God’s world.

 

When we praise, we are engaging in two very important activities.

We are affirming others.

The word affirm derives from a Latin root that means “to build up.”  So, when we praise, we are building up people — their self-esteem, their self-worth, their good feelings about themselves and life.

We are also adoring.

Tracing the Latin roots of “adore” (ad-orare) we see that “to adore” is “to pray toward.”

It is to direct our attention, our energy, out from ourselves in order to commune with another Reality.

When that praise, that adoration, is directed toward God, it is a Reality larger, deeper, purer than our own being.

You cannot praise, you cannot adore, you cannot affirm, when you are wrapped up in yourself and your life alone.

You can only praise when your focus is directed outside of yourself.

 

Closely related to praise is gratitude.

Where praise is looking for and seeing the goodness around us in others, God, and ourselves, gratitude is the response we make to that goodness.

Gratitude grows out of the understanding that life is a gift, it comes from God, it is good, and God loves us and desires good for us.

When we approach life with this attitude, then every surprise becomes a challenge to trust and grow; the way we do that is through praise and gratitude.

 

In the early 1900's prolific and influential writer G. K. Chesterton approached life in this way.

He delighted in the ordinary and was surprised and awed by existence — his own and all else’s.

In a letter to his fiancee he wrote, “I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do.  The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me; the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud.”

One way he cultivated this attitude was through an intense practice of gratitude.

“You say grace before meals.  All right.  But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, and swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in ink.”

 

What Chesterton seemed to know psychologists and physicians are learning from their studies that gratitude, that is, a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life, is more than simply a pleasant emotion to experience or a polite sentiment to express.

It is, or at least can be, a basic disposition, one that seems to make lives happier, healthier, more fulfilling — and even longer.

Recent psychological and medical research shows that:

-a person experiencing gratitude is protected from the destructive impulses of envy and greed;

-grateful people experience higher levels of positive emotions and greater satisfaction with life; and

-consciously experiencing appreciation increases parasympathetic activity, a change thought to be beneficial in controlling stress and hypertension.

 

So, cheerful old Frank Jones new exactly what he was talking about.

He was in his mid-80's, wrinkled as an old washboard, and he used a walker to drag along his crippled leg.

Although he lived all alone, he was intensely happy.

He had a host of friends, many of whom visited him regularly because he gave them a spiritual lift.

He dubbed himself, “Cheerful Old Frank Jones.”

His pastor came for the same reason.

“The man is a true saint,” the pastor said to his wife and friends.  And, the pastor confessed, old Frank had taught him a lesson.

Each time the pastor called on the joyful fellow, Frank handed him his church envelope containing his gift for the church.  One day the pastor thought, “Frank probably needs the money more than the church.”

So the pastor suggested to Frank that the church was doing well financially and didn’t need his gift.

Old Frank smiled, handed his envelope to the pastor and said, “Pastor, the church may not need my gift.  But I need to give it.”