Hey Friend -

One of the greatest spiritual breakthroughs I have ever had is beginning to practice thankfulness daily.

I picked it up from Pete Greig. His “rejoice” segment in the prayer model of P.R.A.Y (Pause. Rejoice. Ask. Yield) got me onto it.

But it was a variety of writing about the sociological uniqueness of life in the Western World of radical individualism that made me start leaning into it. It is the marriage of rejoicing and yielding that confronted me with my own individualism.

How individualism eats our soul.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French thinker and writer. He visited the United States, and wrote the classic Democracy in America in 1835 and 1840 (it’s a two-volume work). The book was the result of his exploration of discovering the uniqueness of this new experiment in democracy. He wanted to understand what made us tick, and individualism seemed to be the thing. But it was so great, he also cautioned it might be the downfall of us.

This quote about individualism from haunts me.

Charles Taylor, writing 200 years later talks about individualism as a segment of modern secular society. He uses the phrase "stadial consciousness" to talk about how as humanity has changed in the last 500 years, our reference point has shifted from the Divine, to ourselves as the center of the world. It is a different perception of reality. In the last 200 years, we've also created this idea called "the public sphere", where our own beliefs get lifted high up and become assumed communal value.

Jean Twenge, a leading social scientist, studies how generations differ. She points out that individualism grew from the Baby Boomer generation. Each new generation changes this idea further, especially with our reliance on technology.

Twenge ends up riffing on Taylor's stadial consciousness and the public sphere and speaks to how we no longer have any communal trust.

I remember being back in high school, and part of a subculture of teenagers who loved the mid-90s store Gadzooks. It was the one-stop shop for kids outside of cultural centers to find and buy the clothes and accessories to make us stand out from the preppy kids. Teenagers wanted to express themselves. Their desires depended on what marketing teams defined as weird or different. Corporate individualism.

Individualism is rooted in the idea we can self-generate our own happiness.

But it begins to break down.

And when it breaks down, it breaks down hard.

From the prophet Isaiah.

While our idols are not the physical gods of the ancient world, we still try to self-generate the things to make us happy. They create ontological anxiety for each of us. Individualism is the Ba’al of our day. I’ll go so far as to say that individualism is the opposite of the Christian life. We need to do the work to wring it from our understanding of our personal life.

To do that, we have to understand thankfulness as a unique Christian practice and attitude.

A quick primer on Biblical Thankfulness.

Breaking from this pattern of idolatry in scripture casts a different story. It isn’t one on destroying the pattern of sin. It is one, offered up simply, of realizing it is the LORD alone who handles goodness in our own lives. Our practice as Christians is to recognize this.

Thankfulness isn’t an attitude. Biblically, to be thankful, means realizing the source of all good things is straight from the LORD.

Paul explains that thankfulness is more than just an attitude. It's about trusting God. When we trust, we find strength in this pattern of faith. Thankfulness becomes the practice that re-roots us out of idolatry of the self and into a proper relationship with our creator.

Thankfulness means that “another: is in more control than us.

Thankfulness, across scripture, is a key indicator of our awareness of God. It keeps in our bodies response that something else is in control. With thankfulness, we are pulling out of any controlling dynamic the world centers around us. Biblical thankfulness is a key engagement in our operating inside of the Kingdom, in the eternal story of a creating God in total control. Thankfulness becomes a positive attitude that brings us into the presence of God.

Ronald Rollheiser, the Catholic Theologian, says this;

Thankfulness can also break us out of patterns of destruction in our personal lives.

If the reconciliation and restoration Jesus brings us are true, to be thankful is to be truly human.

How can we begin cultivating thankfulness?

Enough of the theologizing. Let’s get practical.

How do we build this up?

Let me give you 3 ideas.

We start a daily thankfulness list.​
I started this practice years ago. At first, it was a piece of paper in my Bible where I listed the things I was thankful for. Over time, it became a daily practice of making this list in my journal. There are a few things I write down the same each day, and then I take the time to reflect on specific actions or attitudes in my mind. I list them and then take the time to thank God for them. If a person contributes to it, I lift up not just the action, but the person as well.

I also have a wider monthly list
​This is a helpful thing to do on those slow, long devotional times during the weekend.

It’s called “what I am not in control of”.

If something is troublesome, I think about the places where I don’t have any agency over the situation. I pray about it specifically and I give it over to God as directly as I can. If things are going great because of sheer providence, I make sure I thank God for it and celebrate it as something that is simply just good.

I think the power of this practice directly deals with what Mark Lau Branson and Alan Roxburgh call “Modernities Wager” in their book Leadership, God's Agency, and Disruption. Modernities Wager is a concept of control being a primary desire in the modern world. In making this list I am simply going through the spiritual realization that I do not have to be in control of everything and letting God be the primary actor.

Telling the story of Thankfulness

Often we think luck has a big play in our life. I stopped believing in luck and when good things happen, no matter how small, I thank God and give Him credit. Sure, it might be my shoulder isn’t as sore when I wake up in the morning as it was when I went to sleep, but I give God credit for it. It’s a beautiful day outside and I enjoy sitting on the patio with my dog; I give God credit for it.I also intentionally try to tell people about the good things God is doing. I used to feel this was trite, but I’ve worked on slowly being audible in my thankfulness for God…like they do all throughout the Psalms.

I proclaim your acts in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and faithfulness from the great assembly.Psalm 40:9-10

Individualism is modern idolatry. To fight it, we need to learn to practice thankfulness.

See you next time.

Chad

Curious about some of the resources I mentioned? Here are the links.*
​
Why We Are Restless (Storey and Storey) | https://amzn.to/3QAaNAI​
A Secular Age (Charles Taylor) | https://amzn.to/3QAaNAI​
Generations (Jean Twenge) | https://amzn.to/41uhGK5​
Ronald Rolheiser: Essential Spiritual Writings (von Stamwitz) | https://amzn.to/4ickZuW​
Memories, Hopes, and Conversations (Lau Branson) | https://amzn.to/3XhTYhy​
Leadership, God's Agency, and Disruption: Confronting Modernities Wager (Roxburgh and Lau Branson) | https://amzn.to/41yDsfW​
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*These are affiliate links, which means I earn a percentage of the price. This all goes back into supporting my YouTube and other digital work.

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