SOMETHING that’s been on my mind recently is the practice of gratitude: giving thanks.

In our church team meetings, we regularly make time for sharing encouragements because we’ve found that it’s so important in keeping our faith anchored in the goodness of God to us. How easy it is to forget the little things: answers to prayer; small miracles of provision or reconciliation; joy; peace… the list is endless.

I sense a renewed call to practise gratitude in this season, remembering that it’s not merely a pleasant feeling but a prompt to action, to give thanks.

Let me offer you two pictures to illustrate what I think giving thanks does to our hearts. The first is a sponge: without thanksgiving, our hearts remain like a brand-new sponge. Hard. Dry. But when we give thanks, it’s like they’re plunged into warm water which has the effect of softening our heart with the joy of the gift of life.

The second picture is of a beaker on a tilting stand, a bit like a science experiment. I wonder whether you can envisage this from your days in science lessons at school? Every moment we take to give thanks is like another drop out of the beaker which drips into the vessels of our hearts, until the beaker itself fills so much that it tips over and overflows to bless those around us.

How about you? What do you have to give thanks for at the moment? Perhaps there’s a lot. Or perhaps it doesn’t feel like there’s very much at all, especially if you’re going through a tough time. Either way, I encourage you to make a habit of noticing the good things and making time to say “thank you” for the blessings in your life. It might just change it!

Jonathan Huff

Vicar, parish of St Austell