Getting Stuck In The Gratitude Trap By Banishing Busyness

Gratitude cannot coexist with busyness. If we have too much going on, there’s too much going on to be grateful.

And if there’s too much going on we’re probably coveting a multitude of things.

And if we’re coveting we’re driven by greed, envy, lust or fear. Covetousness is a controlling spirit, the evidence of which we’re being controlled.

Gratitude helps break that chain of control.

And we must contend that life in all its mystery and power is a life replete with such opportunity to acquire; to take; to refashion; to manipulate; to reuse, and even to spoil.

Life is a smorgasbord and it feels like we only have a limited time to dine. And that’s the truth — we do only have so long. And so we must accept we can’t have everything. We can’t even have most of what we could have and still have gratitude.

Gratitude is like fertiliser that germinates the seed of joy lifting it out of the soil into the sunshine where it can grow.

Busyness robs of the opportunity for gratitude.

If we’re to be found encapsulated in gratitude — found incarcerated in the gratitude trap — blissfully unable and never wanting to escape — then we will accept that we must relinquish our grip on that which can be acquired which serves us little good.

With few exceptions, busyness is a product of the choices we make that always end in “yes.” Even our choices to serve people can be pressed too far, like when we cannot bear not pleasing them.

Busyness that prevails works against a peaceable gratitude that is ever ours if only we can kiss goodbye the things that aren’t good for us. There is nothing dressed up as good thing that is ever worth sacrificing our peaceable gratitude for.

How are we to be ‘trapped’ by gratitude?

The less we have, the more grateful we are.

This is not against the person materially blessed. Some people who have much make their way to gratitude by how much they still give away.

This is not for the person who has paucity. Many people (but not most) who have little have little because they’re not inspired or motivated enough to sow back into life with generosity.

The person who considers things and worry for reputation as poor replacements for life is also the person who understands that if we’re to be trapped by gratitude we must give our stuff and our status away. We shouldn’t attempt to keep we should hope not to retain. What we cannot lost we cannot lose, so there’s no logical fear for losing.

The product of the gratitude trap is inner bliss when we surrender what isn’t intended as ours for what can never any longer not be.

Gratitude happens when vanities and competing philosophies vanish into the ether in recognition of what God has done in Jesus Christ. What a lovely place to be retained in.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.