3 Habits to Cultivate Gratitude In Your Marriage
This blog post is a joint collaboration by Discipleship Pastor Grant Caldwell and his wife, Casey.
Discover three essential habits to cultivate gratitude in your marriage. Overcome challenges like entitlement, lack of communication, and sorrow to build a stronger, more thankful relationship with your spouse.
What Keeps Us From Gratitude?
“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
Most of us are familiar with this verse. Maybe we have a mug from TJ Maxx that reminds us to give thanks in all circumstances. But how often do we find ourselves feeling anything but thankful as we stare at a pile of dirty dishes, have another argument with our spouse about that thing we “know we told them about,” or drink a large cup of coffee from said mug as we try to recover from another sleepless night because... kids.
We’ve all been there!
We want to live a life marked by gratitude. We want to love our spouses well, to uplift and encourage the person we’ve chosen to spend our days with. However, the end of the day comes, and we realize we’ve done neither of these things.
Instead of expressing gratitude, we complained. Instead of uplifting our spouse, we worked silently side by side just to cross the finish line known as bedtime. So, what is gratitude, and how do we cultivate it in our marriages?
Gratitude is “the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful.” As Christ-followers, we express gratitude because we know everything we have is a gift from God. The natural response to receiving a gift is to express gratitude and thanksgiving.
The primary gift we have received from God is our salvation and new life in Christ. Paul writes in Ephesians 2, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We also know that “every good and perfect gift is from above,” which includes our marriages.
We know we have received the ultimate gift: salvation. We also know that God, in His kindness, gave us the gift of marriage. So, what keeps us from expressing gratitude, and how could we build it into our lives instead?
Here are three challenges that have kept us from gratitude and three habits we have formed to cultivate gratitude in our marriage.
3 Habits to Cultivate Gratitude in Marriage
Challenge #1: Entitlement & Lack of Contentment
Simply put, we cannot be grateful when we are not content. A lack of contentment often comes from looking at our peers and wishing our lives looked more like theirs. Maybe you’re in a season of longing for children. Maybe you have the child you longed for but find yourself longing for more of the quiet and freedom you had before. Maybe you work outside the home and find yourself envious of those who can spend more time with their children.
Whatever season we find ourselves in, we tend to long for something different. We think, “My life would be easier if…” and we fail to express gratitude for the season God has us in.
Entitlement is the enemy of gratitude. We’re in a season of parenting a toddler, which is, in a word, chaotic. As introverts who value a quiet start to the day, we often find ourselves angry when this routine is disrupted.
Entitlement tells me that this is not just something that I enjoy but something that I deserve. If Grant serves me by creating space for me to have a few minutes of quiet on a morning when our son decides 5:00 AM is a suitable time to start the day, I won’t express gratitude if I view him as just giving me something I am owed. To be grateful, I must fight the lies of entitlement.
Habit to Form #1: Sabbath
If gratitude tells me all of life is a gift from God, the Sabbath helps me receive that gift. I can rest because I have nothing to earn and nothing to prove.
We’ve learned to sabbath with the help of John Mark Comer’s book Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Set aside 24 hours straight for worship and rest. Put the phones in another room. Do things that refuel your soul and remind you to thank God for His generous gifts. Cultivate gratitude as you acknowledge the season you are in.
Rest may look different for you than it did five years ago, and that’s okay. Don’t use that as an excuse to not Sabbath; Fight for it.
Challenge #2 Lack of Communication
Life is hard! And busy!
It’s easy to live your marriage side-by-side instead of face-to-face. We can treat our spouses like a business partner as we keep the affairs of our home in order but fail to nurture our relationship. Maybe we failed to tell our partner we had dinner plans one night and created extra work for them around the house. Maybe we’ve gone a few weeks without meaningful conversation and didn’t realize our spouse was struggling and needed encouragement. This lack of communication can lead to resentment rather than gratitude.
Habit to Form #2: Intentional Conversations
Have some kind of regular rhythm that helps you know your spouse’s inner world. We like to do this over a walk. Walking helps us get outside, exercise, and connect with one another (even if we have to bribe our son with a sucker to join us).
Some of the questions we regularly ask are:
What are you thankful for? This gives us a chance to express gratitude for the ways God has been kind and faithful.
What are you stressed about? This gives us a chance to know specific ways to support and encourage each other throughout the week.
What are you loving right now? This helps us express gratitude for small things in life that are bringing us joy.
At the start of each month, we’ve also started a family calendar. This has been one of the practices that has helped our communication the most. We’ve had fewer arguments that started with, “You didn’t tell me about that,” and are able to have a plan for days that might be stressful. It’s hard to be grateful when you are constantly bickering about not being on the same page. The calendar can help that.
Challenge #3: Sufferings & Sorrows
When gratitude is distant, it’s often due to something larger hiding in the shadows nearby, making our attempts at thankfulness feel trite: sorrow. We ask questions like, “Is it selfish to be grateful for my marriage when so many friends are in seasons of loneliness?” Or “How can I show gratitude for my family when someone I love is walking through infertility?” Our sorrows are a constant reminder that things in our world are not as they should be.
Habit to Form #3: Worship
While entitlement and lack of contentment often keep us from gratitude, an eternal perspective allows us to hold our gratitude and sorrow together. In worship, we can express gratitude for God’s gifts and lament over the brokenness in our world. We can live in the tension of the already but not yet, holding fast to the promise that, in all things, God truly is preparing us for “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
His greatest gift is coming: a world where all wrongs will be made right. A world not marred by sin but characterized by shalom. A world with no more death, morning, crying, or pain.
Let us live lives of gratitude as we eagerly await our coming King.
We always want more, don’t we? More time, more patience, more purpose, more fun, more toys, more! And then even more. Even while we are stretching ourselves for more, could it be that we miss what is right in front of us, or rather, who is right next to us?
Let’s agree that we are prone to miss the more that God desires to bring about in us and through our marriage.
Whether you have been married for just a few years or longer than you thought possible, God’s presence and purpose in your marriage remain constant. Our God is ever ready to take all that has happened and will happen in our marriages for us to become more together than we are now - for our good and His glory.
You are invited to step away and join couples, from those who are newlyweds to those with long-term marriages who are willing to take a closer look at the more God has in store for their marriages than they can even imagine.
TL;DR
Learn how to foster gratitude in your marriage by addressing challenges like:
Entitlement
Communication issues
Sorrow
Through the practices of Sabbath, intentional conversations, and worship, you can strengthen your bond and create a more thankful relationship with your spouse.
Related Reading
The Story of a Marriage by Rev. Jacky Gatliff
The Submissive Family by Brad Bogue
Children Are Not An Interruption by Brad Bogue