"The Grumbler's Guide to Giving Thanks" (Dustin Crowe)

TITLE: The Grumbler's Guide to Giving Thanks: Reclaiming the Gifts of a Lost Spiritual Discipline
AUTHOR: Dustin Crowe
PUBLISHER: Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2020, (176 pages). 

Thanksgiving season is nearly here. For many, it is a time of busy activities surrounding shopping, gifts, family reunions, and lots of food! Such things no matter how good miss the point: Thanksgiving is gratitude from the heart. The underlying assumption of true gratitude is to know that we have all received much more than we actually gave. For instance, we owe it to our parents who brought us up. We were young and helpless as babies, and our parents fed us, nourished us, and nurtured us. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, parental love for their children is pretty universal. In spite of idiosyncrasies and other associated dysfunctional relationships, we are in fact recipients of much giving and loving. For Christians, nothing beats the love of God in Christ Jesus, who not only gave, He gave His life for us at the Cross. We all need to be reminded regularly that thanksgiving is at the heart of society, especially the Christian Life. As a former pessimist, Author Crowe had four key motivations in writing this book. 1) He needs it personally; 2) He notices a lack of books on "giving biblically"; 3) his desire to know God more fully; 4) To grow spiritually. We need an alternative to all the complaining, griping, and sarcasm in our society. So, Crowe's objective is simply to do his part to help the grumbler in us become grateful instead. 

He guides us through what it means to be grateful in God. Just having this spirit of thanksgiving would change our perspective of life. It is not merely experienced inside but also expressed outside. Thanksgiving is also a journey to be closer to God. When receiving a gift, we are thankful not only for the gift but for the giver. If we have cultivated our hearts to be consistently thankful to God for all He has done for us, thanking others would be most natural. I like the way he talks about the relationship between the gift and the giver. The gift not only reminds us of the giver, but tells us more about the giver. Crowe takes time to show us what the Bible says about thanksgiving. He shows us the multiple references to gratitude in both the Old and New Testaments. There are also themes that flow throughout the Scriptures showing us that gratitude is an act of worship and spirituality. Perhaps, one of the biggest challenges is to deal with difficult times in our lives. How then do we give thanks? Instead of giving in to needless anxieties that are not helpful, gratitude gives us the strength to deal with the challenges with a renewed vitality. Crowe also shows us that gratitude is a habit to be developed. It builds our spiritual muscles. Very often, our busyness and our propensity to be distracted makes us grumblers. Living thankfully means to recognize the gifts before us; to reflect on the significance; and the receive it with grace. Crowe ends with a gratitude challenge to help us discover our inner need for gratitude. 

My Thoughts
Being thankful should not be reserved just for a day or week in a year. It should be all the time. In 1 Thess 5:18, we are exhorted to always be thankful. This is a powerful prescription for growing spiritually. Whoever wants to practice the Word of God, give thanks. Who wants to grow spiritually? Give thanks.Not only is it nourishing to the soul, it is worship to God. An important point in the book is about this, that when we learn to give thanks to God, we grow our joy in God. Once this becomes a habit, we will not reserve our thanksgiving merely to mealtimes or other special occasions, but to do so all the time. Slowly, our perspective on life, in general, would change for the better. 

The author is a self-confessed pessimist and he invites us to join him on the journey to move from grumpiness to gratitude. The title of the book should grab the grumbler in anyone of us, that we need to learn how to be truly grateful. As our world grapples with many challenges, we allow the negative things to surround us so much that it is easy to lose sight of the positives. As we practice giving thanks, we will increase our vision of hope to see light at the end of every tunnel. I appreciate this simple reminder from Crowe that Thanksgiving is like "an anchor through the storm." Life is not easy and grumbling will definitely not make it much better. It might even worsen the situation. Take a different approach, just like the counter-cultural principles taught by Jesus in the beatitudes. 

If you find it hard to be thankful, consider picking up this book for ideas and suggestions. Take comfort that the author himself had also struggled the same. Take the gratitude challenge. Test yourself. 

Dustin Crowe is pastor of discipleship at College Park Church Fishers just outside Minneapolis, Indiana. 

Rating: 4.25 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book has been provided courtesy of Moody Publishers and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.