By April Yamasaki

Last Sunday I preached on Psalm 111 which is both a psalm of thanksgiving and a wisdom psalm. The psalmist writes, “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart” (v. 1), and ends, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.”

So I called my sermon “The Wisdom of Giving Thanks,” which went well with our Old Testament reading about King Solomon at the beginning of his reign asking God for wisdom and with our New Testament reading from Ephesians urging readers to live wisely by giving thanks to God (5:20).

I started my sermon with a personal story:

A few nights earlier, my husband said to me as he often does, “Thank you for a good day.” That morning I picked up the prescriptions he needed from the drug store. I worked on my sermon, then helped him organize some files for his own work. He felt up to driving to his lab appointment — the first time he drove himself to the lab since his extended hospital stay last fall — but I still went with him to keep him company. We had takeout for lunch, and I made lasagna for supper.

So it was a good day — and I think made even better because we stopped to notice these good things and to give thanks, to one another and to God.

Then I talked about Psalm 111 as a more formal litany of thanks, with each line beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet: the first line beginning with the first letter, the second line beginning with the second letter, and so on line by line until the last letter of the alphabet. The acrostic style made the psalm easier to memorize, and it was also a way of saying that something was complete. Just as in English we might say something is all there from A to Z — only in Hebrew, it’s from aleph to taw. So in Psalm 111, it’s as if the psalmist expresses gratitude from A to Z, from aleph to taw, with everything he has, with his whole heart, for all that God is and does.

I included this quote from author Melodie Beattie:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

I also included some of the science of gratitude that I had read in a newspaper article and tucked away in a file to use someday, and now someday had come. According to one study, people who kept a weekly gratitude journal worked out more regularly, felt better both physically and mentally, and reported more success in achieving their personal goals than a control group that did not keep a gratitude journal. Another study compared a control group of young adults who focused on their hassles with a group who practiced a daily gratitude exercise. Those who practiced gratitude rated higher in enthusiasm, energy, and alertness, and were also more likely to help others.

Not every sermon includes Scripture, personal experience, and science, but I’m thankful for the combination this time. And today once again I’ll practice the wisdom — and science — of gratitude as part of my everyday life and ministry. Thanks be to God.

April Yamasaki is a writer and pastor, currently serving as resident author with a liturgical worship community. Her books include Four Gifts: Seeking Self-Care for Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength and Sacred Pauses: Spiritual Practices for Personal Renewal. For more information and a free copy of her ebook, How to Pray When Prayer Seems Impossible, visit AprilYamasaki.com.