Shipwreck Your Ingratitude

Be filled with the Spirit . . . giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20)

I have a thought experiment for you (which I borrowed from G.K. Chesterton).

Imagine you are sailing across the ocean and a great storm wrecks your boat. Like Robinson Crusoe, you end up washed up on a deserted island. For days, you’re stranded there with nothing but the rags on your back. Just you, sand, salt, and the inescapable sun.

Then a barrel washes up on the beach. You open it to find water — sweet water. Imagine how grateful you’d be. Imagine the exuberant thanks you’d offer God for this liquid gift. He didn’t have to give it to you; it could have been lost forever at sea.

Next, you find a crate floating in the shallows, packed with food: bread and butter, cheese and dried fruit — and, oh, a slab of chocolate! You marvel at these delicacies fit for a king, shed a tear at how good everything tastes, savor God’s grace in each bite.

Over the following days, other things come ashore. A padded chair. Some clothing. A hammock. Two shoes. A waterlogged Bible. Each item you snatch from the sea seems like a peculiar treasure with God’s fingerprints on it. When one of your shipmates stumbles out of the waves, it’s almost too much to take in. What else could you say in that moment but thanks be to God?

This experiment reminds us how grateful, how shipwreck grateful, we ought to be for God’s good gifts. Like our castaway, you can earn nothing, you deserve nothing, and yet you receive so very much.

Thanks That Magnifies

Shipwreck grateful captures the spirit of Paul’s relentless call to relentless gratitude. It’s one of his favorite commands to give and to model. Consider just a few examples:

[Give] thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)

Why is gratitude so important to Paul? Because heartfelt gratitude glorifies God. Paul tells us God wants his grace to spread to more and more people so that “it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15). Paul is following in the footsteps of the psalmist, who says, “I will magnify [God] with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30). And the psalmist is echoing God himself: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” (Psalm 50:23).

The divine logic makes perfect sense. Gratitude is joy in the goodwill of a giver occasioned by a gift. And we know that joy in God glorifies God. We get a gift, joy blossoms in our hearts, and that aroma of delight rises from the gift to the Giver by thanksgiving. But more than that, God’s gifts are incomplete until thanksgiving tethers them to their Giver.

“We are surrounded by God’s good gifts. Hedged in on every side. Constantly bumping into them.”

On the other hand, Paul knows that when gratitude withers, God is not glorified, and idolatry is inevitable. That’s why he lists ingratitude as one of the two root sins that trigger God’s wrath against the unrighteous: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God” — catch this — “or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21). Idolatry separates and elevates gifts over God, but gratitude relates and subordinates gifts to God. When a heart that loves God meets God, it gives honor; when that heart meets his gifts, it gives thanks. They are two sides of the same righteous coin.

Paul also knows that we are surrounded by God’s good gifts. Hedged in on every side. Constantly bumping into them. Need I remind you of James 1:17? “All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down” — right now, all around you — “from the Father of lights” (NET). Did we forget 1 Timothy 4:4? “Everything created by God is good . . . if it is received with thanksgiving.” Truly, God is not far from any of us.

Every good thing we encounter is a gift of God for our joy and his glory. It’s no wonder Paul is the apostle of gratitude. Giving thanks increases our joy, protects us from idolatry, and magnifies the Giver.

Inattentive, So Ungrateful

If all this is true, why are we not more grateful? How do we ever manage to stop saying, “Thanks be to God”? Why do I so often find myself grumpy?

If you’re like me, a main vice behind ingratitude is inattention. We don’t pay attention to God’s goodness all around us. Unlike Paul, we’re not shipwrecked enough, and familiarity breeds blindness. Like the smudges on your bathroom mirror, you see God’s gifts so often you don’t notice them anymore.

Think about it. When was the last time you thanked God for the breath in your lungs? Breath is his gift. “He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). Somewhere around a dozen times a minute, twenty thousand times a day, you intake this substance you cannot see; God gives it to you every time. And yet, how often do you thank him?

Or take sunlight. God hung a star in the sky so many miles away it would take you twenty years just to count that high. Like someone throwing confetti at a cosmic party, God sheds sunlight on the righteous and the wicked. He makes the sun rise each morning — every morning. When was the last time you thanked God for this marvel?

Time would fail to mention Scripture and salvation, trees and knees, chairs and caffeine, bikes and balls, indoor plumbing, glasses, your spouse’s smile, the smell of bacon, and, oh, colors — what an absolutely staggering gift colors are! Over time, if we are not attentive, omnivorously attentive, our senses lose their appetite, and our gratitude starves. Of this, we must confess and repent.

Saved from Shipwreck

The shipwreck thought experiment wakes us up; it gives our wonder a workout.

It’s good to look around you at people and stars and food and technology and imagine how happy you would be to have these things stranded on a desert island. Snatched from a shipwreck, every gift would appear almost as marvelous as it actually is. We’d remember that God did not have to give us anything; he owes us nothing, especially in our sin. None of it had to be this way. Nothing forced him to create any of it. It’s all gift, summoned from the sea of ex nihilo by God’s creative word, given to us as an act of gratuitous grace, and demanding our delighted thanks.

So, for the sake of your joy and God’s glory, labor, with your sanctified imagination, to be grateful, shipwreck grateful, for all the good gifts your Father bestows on you.