by John Ortberg
Here’s some soul homework, by way of Dallas Willard:
If you want to really experience the flow of love as never before, the next time you are in a competitive situation [around work or relationship or whose kids are the highest achieving or looks or whatever], pray that the others around you will be more outstanding, more praised, and more used of God than yourself. Really pull for them and rejoice in their success. If Christians were universally to do this for each other, the earth would soon be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.
THE SOUL WORSHIPS WHAT IT DESIRES
I attended a funeral where the deceased was a man who used to joke when he was alive that he was a CEO church guy — Christmas and Easter Only. “My body will darken the door of a church just twice a year,” he used to laugh. It was funny in a way until I thought, “Except the last year of your life. Then it will be Christmas, Easter, and a funeral.” His church attendance increased by 50 percent in his last year.
The fact is, we satisfy our souls through worship.
Philosophy professor Kent Dunnington writes about a paramedic he knows who received an anonymous call that a heroin addict was near death in a nearby abandoned building. When the paramedic got there, the poor man was shivering in a corner, already unresponsive and near death. The apartment was foul-smelling and littered with trash and drug paraphernalia.
Kent asked his friend what it was like. The paramedic’s comment was stunning: “It was terrifying, but for the first time in my life I understood what worship looks like.”
Addiction, Kent explained, is a kind of worship, a kind of counterfeit worship. For the soul was created to worship. The soul requires a center to give it identity, to have a purpose for its activities, to give it a hope and a foundation. There is no such thing as an uncommitted person. An addict is the supreme example of trying to satisfy the soul with all the wrong things. The more it’s fed, the more it craves. One of the ways to diagnose your ultimate commitment is to ask yourself: What do you get most irritated about when your soul is threatened?
Author and former seminary professor Neal Plantinga once said something amazing about our capacity for addiction. He said it shows that we were wired for ecstasy. Not the drug, but pure, ecstatic joy. Our ceaseless craving for more, though it can kill us when unredeemed, may be a hint of the joy that we were made for when the soul finds its center in God.
The paradox of soul-satisfaction is this: When I die to myself, my soul comes alive. God says the wrong approach to soul thirst is through human achievement and material wealth. So soul-satisfaction is not about acquiring the right things but about acquiring the right soul. It is not something you buy, but something you receive freely from God.
Hear these great words of the prophet Isaiah: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and [your soul] will delight in the richest of fare.”
And it will be satisfied.
CHAPTER 15
THE SOUL NEEDS GRATITUDE
Try a little experiment. It will take all of two days, but it will teach you an important soul lesson.
Today, when you greet people, begin your conversation with a little complaint. The Bible calls that grumbling, as in “Do everything without grumbling.” It might be a complaint about something in your life: your health, your job, money problems, the fact that you don’t have a spouse, the fact that you do have the spouse that you have. It might be something about the person you’re greeting. You don’t like how they’re dressed. Or you just don’t like their personality, or maybe you’re jealous. Just greet a friend or colleague with something like, “Man, did I have a horrible night’s sleep.” I’d be thrilled if you couldn’t think of anything.
Tomorrow, try to greet people with a word of gratitude. I hope this is a lot easier for you than today’s assignment. Think about something you’re genuinely grateful for: your family, a friend, your health, your job, the weather, your church. It might sound something like this: “Wow, on a morning like this, it just feels good to be alive, doesn’t it?”
After you try this little experiment, ask yourself which day produced more positive feelings in you. Which day left you feeling vibrant, more alive, and closer to God? I’m pretty sure I know the answer because the soul thrives on gratitude. We feel better when we are grateful because the fundamental mind-set of the life of the soul is gratitude.
In Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae, he offered some new rules to help them live more authentically as followers of Christ. False teaching had introduced heresy into the church, and Paul wanted to remind them to practice the very attitude of Jesus as they interacted with each other and their neighbors. After listing such qualities as compassion, kindness, patience, humility, and the like, he ends this section of his letter with an appeal for gratitude: “And be thankful. . . . sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through him.”
In another of his letters, he exhorts Christians to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Remember, these people had been redeemed by God — followers of Jesus — yet they needed to be reminded to be grateful. Not just when things went well, but in all circumstances. If anyone would practice gratitude, shouldn’t it be Christians? The truth is, all of us can get so caught up in ourselves that we too often don’t take the time to be grateful — to God and to others. “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” the psalmist asks. Maybe it’s because you are not feeding it with the gratitude it needs.
GOD’S BENEFIT PACKAGE
More gratitude will not come from acquiring more things or experiences, but from more of an awareness of God’s presence and his goodness. It’s a way of looking at life, always perceiving the good. Gratitude is a by-product of a way of seeing things, and it always involves three factors. The language is a little unusual, so you will just have to bear with it. It comes from the old Latin word bene, which meant good, and gratitude will always involve three benes.
First, the benefit. In order to be grateful, you have to receive and recognize a gift that you believe is good. You find it favorable. The Bible says, “Praise the LORD, my soul . . . and forget not all his benefits — who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things . . .” It doesn’t get any better than that, does it? But the important thing to remember is that God does all this. These are the benefits he gives us, and the soul responds with gratitude.
Second, gratitude requires that there be a benefactor. Again the little word bene, Latin for “good,” this time coupled with factor, which is related to the word factory. A benefactor is one who does good, a little factory that produces good. To be truly grateful you must not only recognize the benefits or gifts that come your way, but that they are not just random acts; they are not accidents. They are coming from Someone who has good intentions for you. To be grateful as a Christian, you must believe that the good that is in your life comes from God. Not from your own efforts or merit. Not from others who might want to impress or manipulate you for their gain.
The apostle James writes, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. . . .” Light is an expression of goodness, and when we consider what he has done for us and what he has given us, our souls are grateful.
In addition to the benefit and the benefactor, there is the beneficiary: the one who receives the good gifts of God. And that’s you. You are the beneficiary of the benefits of a God who has your best interests at heart, and this is going on all the time. When we take that for granted or be
lieve we deserve his gifts, then we are no longer grateful; you can’t be grateful for something you believe you are entitled to, and without a grateful heart the soul suffers. Because the soul needs gratitude.
This is where many of us fail the gratitude test, because we tend to look around us and believe all that we have was gained by our own resourcefulness. Or that we’re entitled to the blessings in our lives. But gratitude always comes from a posture of humility. When you buy a new car and drive it home from the showroom, you may be thrilled that you can buy a new car, but you’re not necessarily grateful to GM or Ford. But what if I drove a brand-new Porsche to your home, pulled into the driveway, and handed you the keys? “Here — it’s yours. I just want you to have this.” I’m pretty sure you’d at least say, “Thank you.”
Am I kidding? You’d probably hug me and thank me and ask me why in the world I did this and hug me again and thank me over and over. You would have a hard time believing your good fortune. That’s the kind of gratitude our soul needs as we consider all that God has done for us. All that we have been given that we don’t deserve.
The default mode of the sinful human race is entitlement, the belief that this gift or that experience that God placed in my path is rightfully mine. I am owed.
Here’s the deal: The more you think you’re entitled to, the less you will be grateful for. The bigger the sense of entitlement, the smaller the sense of gratitude. We wonder why in our world we keep getting more and more and more and keep being less and less and less grateful. This is precisely why.
My sinful mind can convince me that anything I want I’m entitled to, and if I’m not getting something I want, somebody in the universe must be messing up, and they owe me, and they ought to pay for it. In fact, this has led to a proliferation of lawsuits, because when we don’t get something we really want, we want to sue somebody.
I’m not a boat guy, but I have friends who know boats. They tell me choosing a name for a boat is a really big deal. When I was in college, one of my instructors was dean over his department. He had a fishing boat he loved. He actually named his boat Faculty Development so he could write on his staff report, “I’m spending more and more time on faculty development.” And this was at a Christian college, believe it or not.
My former colleague Bill Hybels once saw in the Newport Beach harbor in California a beautiful, gleaming, million-dollar yacht whose name was painted in big, bold letters across it. Its name was Deserved. Whatever I have, I deserve. Entitlement grows deep within us. This is why, for the soul, ingratitude is not just a psychological problem. It’s not just an impoverishment of our emotional experience. It’s a sin.
Paul says it’s the hallmark of a life opposed to God. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile . . .” This connection is so interesting. Their thinking was futile. They perceived themselves to be entitled, to be owed, not as grateful receivers of grace every moment. “. . . forget not all his benefits . . .”
TRAINING FOR GRATITUDE
In Jesus’ day, every devout Israelite would pray what was called The Eighteen Benedictions. There’s that root word again, bene: good. Plus diction: words, speech. A benediction was good words. In Hebrew, a benediction was any prayer that began with the word bless. In the morning when they woke up, they would pray eighteen times, “Blessed are you, God.” At night before they went to bed, they would pray eighteen times, “Blessed are you, God.” In the middle of the day, they would pause and pray the eighteen, “Blessed are you, Lord, who abundantly forgives.” The Hebrew benedictions connected the gift with the Giver. It reminded the citizens of Israel that all that was good came from God.
They were training for gratitude, and they loved doing this, because they knew life with God was the good life. They would pray the eighteen an extra time on the Sabbath because they loved the Sabbath so much. They fully knew who provided the good life, and their souls were grateful.
The Hebrew term for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which means, literally, “recognizing the good.” That’s what sustains your soul. That’s what lifts you beyond yourself and into God’s presence. I began this chapter with an experiment, and I would like to close it with two more. Consider these experiments “gratitude training.”
The first one is to write what I call the “gratitude letter.” It works like this: Think of somebody who has impacted your life for the good, somebody maybe whom you’ve known for quite a while: a friend, a mentor, an encourager. Somebody without whom you’d be a different person. Then take the time to write them a letter telling why you are grateful to God for them. It doesn’t have to be a term paper — aim for around something between a Twitter post (140 characters) and a couple of pages. Don’t worry about making it grammatically perfect or a work of literary art. Just tell that person why you are grateful for them. I’ve found that the discipline of putting your thoughts like this on paper helps you — and the other person — see just why you are so grateful for them.
After you write your “gratitude letter,” try to meet with that person face-to-face. You might need to practice a little sanctified deception — don’t tell them why you want to meet, or you might scare them off: “Haven’t seen you for a while — let’s meet for coffee.” Then when you get there, pull out that letter and read it to them word for word. “This is why I’m grateful to God for you.” You might want to have a copy to give to them. If this sounds like it might be an awkward experience, it’s because we seldom take the time to deliberately express our gratitude to each other. And that’s a shame, because it is one of the best things you can do for your own soul as well as the souls of others. I am not much for guarantees, but I think I can say with certainty that writing and then reading your gratitude letter will lift your soul in a remarkable and unforgettable way.
The next gratitude experiment is to pray your own benedictions — brief statements that recognize the good that comes from God. You don’t have to start with eighteen. That might be overwhelming. The best way to do this is to first make a list of all that you are truly grateful to God for providing. Then go back through this list and begin with the words, “Blessed are you, O Lord.”
• Blessed are you, O Lord, for giving me my children.
• Blessed are you, O Lord, who gave me life and good health today.
• Blessed are you, O Lord, for helping me get through this difficult day.
• Blessed are you, O Lord, who forgives me when I sin.
• Blessed are you, O Lord, for the great sunset you let me enjoy.
Is it really necessary to use those words, “Blessed are you”? While the point of this exercise is to feed your soul with gratitude, there really is something special about these words that is worth considering. To bless someone means to offer happiness or praise to them. When you say “Blessed are you, O Lord,” you are not only expressing gratitude, but you are saying, “I want to make you happy and praise you, God, with my gratitude for what you have done.” It’s a subtle reminder that gratitude is good for both the person expressing it and the one receiving it.
I recently had one of those mornings when I just didn’t want to wake up. A pile of unresolved problems and a weariness of soul made rolling over and grabbing another hour of rest appealing. But then I began practicing gratitude. I mentally walked through the previous day in a grateful state of mind:
I got to exercise, and I love having a body with enough strength and energy to exercise. What a gift that is. Not everyone has it.
I got to learn. I love learning. I even get paid to learn. How cool is that?
I’m married to a beautiful and gifted woman. We have three adult children, and they are doing well.
I got to travel someplace. People in other centuries never got to do this kind of thing, and they would have given anything to do so, and I can just get in my car and go wherever I want to go.
By the time I finished reviewing yesterday, I thought, “Wow, I got to live th
is day. Are you kidding me? I got to do that? And today I get to live another day?”
There was only one thing to say.
“Thank you, God!”
It doesn’t always happen that way. Gratitude does not always come naturally. You will not always feel grateful. But you can take the time each day to remember the benefits you received, see your benefactor, and thank him for his benefits.
As Thornton Wilder put it, “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
PART 3
THE SOUL RESTORED
CHAPTER 16
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
If you ask people who don’t believe in God why they don’t, the number one reason will be suffering. If you ask people who believe in God when they grew most spiritually, the number one answer will be suffering.
My father-in-law, Al, had been in the non-believer category since he was a boy and had been badly hurt by the church. His family was very poor; in desperation his mother went to the church for help and came home in tears, empty-handed. It was one of the only times he saw her cry. He would not open up his heart to a God who would make his mother cry.
When his only daughter married a preacher, he wasn’t opposed to my occupation, mostly just removed. He was a hunting/fishing/sportsman kind of guy. Nancy was their only child, and one of the pictures of her I love the most has her cradling a shotgun in her arms. She was four years old at the time. When our first two children were born — both girls — Al was gaga about them. He taught our eldest to know what sound a birdie makes: “Bang.” Just to get her ready for her first shotgun. But the third time around we had a boy, and Al had been waiting for one of those a long time.
