In Unity, we are very in tune with gratitude for all our blessings, and also with affirmative prayers of gratitude. Let’s take it up a notch and look at it as “cause” for our health and prosperity.
Thanksgiving is more than just a reactionary emotion responding to something good happening in our life. Thanksgiving is causative creative energy. Some times, we consider gratitude and thanksgiving as an obligation or duty. Someone does something nice for us, or gives us a gift, and we feel obligated to respond with appreciation. We feel also that we owe it to God to give thanks for all our blessings.
Gratitude Is Not for God, Gratitude Is for You
But will God be disturbed if we do not give thanks? No! It doesn’t make any difference to God if you give thanks or not. But it makes a big difference to you. Gratitude is not for God. Gratitude is for you! It is an essential state of consciousness that keeps you in an awareness of your oneness with divine flow. This awareness of oneness not only deepens our appreciation of life, it also brings about high-levels of health and wellness.
A genuinely grateful heart does not need anything specific to experience a deep sense of gratitude. Being grateful should be experienced with the same spontaneity as being happy. Gratitude simply flows forth from within. It is causative energy inspiring us to express our creativity, or our love for one another. Gratitude inspires a sense of gentle kindness that generates positive effects on our health and wellness. The heart that actively practices gratitude and thanksgiving becomes increasingly willing to give, knowing it will receive more in return. Gratitude increases the causative energy of giving and receiving, until they become as one, and indistinguishable from one another.
In All Things Be Grateful
The apostle Paul gave some advice that has been puzzling to many. He said, “In all things give thanks.” But can we be grateful for the current state of our world? Can we give thanks for a personal financial crisis? Or an illness? Indeed, any kind of challenge or obstacle we receive in the world. These can be a challenge to the practicing life of a grateful heart.
However, Paul didn’t say, “Give thanks for all things.” He said, “In all things, give thanks.” In other words, despite the problems a lack consciousness perceives, or even because of them, practicing gratitude allows us to re-center ourselves in the awareness of the ever-presence of divine creative substance.
The most effective way to accomplish that end is by practicing thanksgiving. Paul is stressing the importance of an actively grateful heart. A grateful heart is more than simply an expression of gratitude for things. A heart that is grateful is capable of creative greatness! The grateful heart actually opens the way to the divine, creative flow. It becomes an attractive causative power, willingly receiving every great thing necessary for its fullest expression.
Even Greater Things than These
When Jesus fed the multitude of 5,000 people with a small boy’s lunch, he demonstrated the creative potential of thanksgiving and gratitude. Before he performed this amazing miracle, Jesus did a strange thing. He mindfully blessed the available food, expressing his deepest gratitude for it. After Jesus blessed the food, it was distributed to the multitude in such abundance that when everyone had finished eating, there were 12 baskets full left over. Let us also practice blessing all that we have in the same way Jesus did. Bless all that comes into our minds, through our thoughts and feelings. Bless even our enemies, and any challenges we may be experiencing in life.
To bless means “to confer prosperity upon.” We are always projecting some thought toward everything we have or hold, so don’t let it be negative thought. Bless your home, your work, your money supply, your family, your friends, and confer a consciousness of abundance upon them. Like Jesus, actively blessing what we have also has tremendous creative power. Jesus demonstrated that this causative energy of gratitude can be used by any one of us. “What I can do, you can do, and even greater things than these shall you do.”
A Mighty Stream of Divine Substance
God is the source of a mighty stream of divine substance, and we are each a tributary of that stream, a unique channel of unlimited expression. Blessing substance always increases its flow. Actively practice being centered in the feeling of thanksgiving. As we do, we learn from experience that a grateful heart is more than being grateful for loving friends, or an affluence of wonderful things in our lives. To be a grateful heart, actively practice thanksgiving for the divine order of everything that happens in your life. If you do, you will soon know that gratitude is so much more than just being grateful for something. It is the celebration of Truth, an assurance of the creative continuity of blessings specifically for you in your life.
