Grasping, but Grateful

To be people of faith, living on this side of heaven means constantly stretching ourselves between two wildly different attitudes: we’re grateful for what we have now, and still, we long for something better ahead.

These practices of gratitude and anticipation, while equally holy and healthy, seem to be at odds. They pull us in opposite directions between what is and what could be.

But what if this taut space between appreciation and anticipation is exactly where hope lives? When put together, gratitude and longing become something more powerful than either practice on its own: an activated expectation, a forward remembrance, a grounded grasping—special kinds of hope that invite us to turn our experiences of personal healing into a longing for universal healing.

My experience of physical healing motivates me to be a part of someone else’s soul-level healing. Gratitude for my little family of four stokes a greater yearning to see God graft every person into a place of belovedness. Thankfulness for my warm, safe home makes me long for the day God will draw all people into a space of true belonging. My appreciation for a good meal fastens my hopes on the heavenly banquet table where hunger of every kind will be satisfied.

But my thanksgiving cannot end in well-intentioned wishes. It should stir up the momentum of love, justice, and compassion. If you and I have been freed for freedom’s sake, as Galatians 5:1 tells us, then we’ve been healed for healing’s sake too.

I can be grateful for the goodness of yesterday, and I can petition for the betterment of tomorrow, and I can take my place in the unfolding redemption story. As Jesus prayed over the fishes and loaves, He gave thanks for God’s provision while daring to ask for even more (Luke 9:16). I, too, can give thanks for what is while straining toward what could be. Contentment can exist without complacency. You might feel like it’s an impossible balance to strike. But it gets easier over time, I promise.

We can accept God’s invitation to be a holder of hope within the time and place He’s assigned us. May we hold it with both gratitude and longing, contentment and disruption, grace and grasping for the gifts we’ve been given and for the goodness we’ve been promised.

God, as I find myself in this painful in-between, will you show me how to hold gratitude and longing at the same time? Deepen my contentment in your provision as you expand my expectations of your mercy and justice, both in my life and in the world. Thank you for promising me that the best is yet to come. May it be so.