Worship: a chosen attitude, not just passing emotion
Daily Scripture
1 Thessalonians 5:15-18
15 Make sure no one repays a wrong with a wrong, but always pursue the good for each other and everyone else. 16 Rejoice always. 17 Pray continually. 18 Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
We often think gratitude is purely a feeling, a reaction to something outside of us. That makes the command to “give thanks in every situation” puzzling. After all, some situations do not trigger positive feelings. Psychology researcher Robert Emmons wrote, “It is vital to make a distinction between feeling grateful and being grateful…. being grateful is a choice, a prevailing attitude that endures and is relatively immune to the gains and losses that flow in and out of our lives.” *
- Scholar William Barclay wrote, “There is always something for which to give thanks; even on the darkest day there are blessings to count. We must remember that if we face the sun the shadows will fall behind us but if we turn our backs on the sun all the shadows will be in front.” ** As you reflect on gratitude’s connection with worship, are you more inclined to resist changing the direction your life faces, or to seek to increasingly “face the sun” in grateful worship?
- A recurring theme in gratitude research is that choosing to be a grateful person does not mean you ignore life’s bad things, or the sad or angry feelings you may have about them. It does mean, however, that you also choose not to let the bad things blind you to the things for which you are grateful. What way(s) have you found to remember the things for which you are grateful when your life takes a difficult turn?
Prayer
O God, you are like the sun, always shining your love and mercy into my life, whatever may happen in my family, my workplace or my health. Help me learn how to keep my focus on you every day. Amen.
GPS Insights
Amy Oden
Dr. Amy Oden is Professor of Early Church History and Spirituality, teaching at several seminaries. Teaching is her calling, and she looks forward to every day with students. Her latest book (Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness, Abingdon Press, 2017) traces ancient mindfulness practice for Christians today.
Have you ever thought about the statistical likelihood of your particular existence? The 23 sets of chromosomes that become the particular human being that you are, are a unique set of material in the entire cosmos. This combination of chromosomes only exists in you.
And this unique set of material is, statistically, astronomically improbable. Out of all the 1-2 million eggs your mother carried in her ovaries, your particular, unique egg was fertilized. Your egg was literally one in a million or more! Add to that, the astonishing selection of 1 sperm from the 1-2 million sperm your father contributed. There were literally millions of other eggs and millions of other sperms and millions of other combinations of eggs and sperms as likely as your particular combination, millions of other possible people from other possible combinations of chromosomes that never came into existence because your egg and sperm did.
Now, multiply this improbability by the hundreds of generations before you–each generation producing particular human beings from one egg and one sperm out of millions. If there had been, in any generation, a different egg or sperm, you would not exist. A different person would.
Consider the exponential unlikelihood of producing your unique genetic material! Taken statistically, scientists calculate that the chance of one egg and one sperm combining to make you is about 1 in 400,000,000,000. That’s 400 trillion to 1 odds of you not happening.
So just the fact of you, your particular DNA, is shockingly unlikely. The universe did not require your specific existence. Yet here you are, a living, breathing, unlikely phenomenon.
When you consider this–that your life is sheer gift that never needed to happen but did–how do you feel? Are you in awe? Or maybe you wonder if it’s unfair that you get to exist when millions of other combinations of eggs and sperms don’t? Does the next breath take on new meaning?
This sort of wonder and awe is at the heart of worship. Awe and wonder are implanted in all of us. We have the capacity to tap into them any time. Here, worship pours forth naturally and genuinely. When we stand in awe and wonder we are able to “always pursue the good for each other and everyone else. Rejoice always. Pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:15-17).
Today, be astonished that you exist. See what happens.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Robert Emmons, “How Gratitude Can Help You Through Hard Times,” syndicated from Greater Good, Sep 12, 2013 at http://www.dailygood.org/story/532/how-gratitude-can-help-you-through-hard-times-robert-emmons/.
** William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 207.
