Reflection on gratitude & faith
- aclark8505
- Oct 4
- 2 min read
I enjoy journaling. Gratitude journalling in particular seems to be having a moment right now. There's even proven mental health benefits associated with it.
For me, journalling looks like reflecting on a passage of scripture, writing praise points of gratitude and prayer points of request and then praying through what I have written. I find the practice to be of benefit in and of itself. Taking time to think about what you have gives perspective and grounds you in the present rather than being focused on what you are chasing.
I was reflecting the other day, though, that my journalling is grounded in my belief in God as an all powerful and transcendently good being who cares for me. As I journal my praise points I am expressing my gratitude for God's kindness toward me. More importantly, through my prayer points I am entrusting my worries and troubles to God.
We have a saying in the world of finance that "past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance". It occurs to me that ordinary gratitude journalling is a strange ritual without some belief in a transcendent being. It does build a habit of gratefulness for what you have or have experienced that provides perspective but because past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance there is no basis on which to think the good things that have happened to you in the past/present will be any indicator of what lies ahead for you.
You could argue that the same is true even if you believe in a good transcendent being, and you'd be correct because none of us is promised good things all the time. What I so appreciate about my journalling habit is that I can entrust myself into the goodness of a God who loves me, who might not have good things in store for me but will be goodness toward me regardless.