Faith Filled Family

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with Steve Demme

Building a Family Culture of Gratitude

ast night, my son John, our adult son with Down syndrome, brought out the “Thanks Book.” This is his way of encouraging us to have a “Thanks Service.” Later that evening, we each took turns telling what we were thankful for, and for that night I was the one who recorded each offering. This practice of being thankful commenced many years ago when our four sons were all under ten. It began as preparation for a sermon on being thankful, but grew into one of our sweetest memories of being a young Christian family.

Serving with Joyfulness and Gladness of Heart

As a young pastor, I often preached on topical studies. I would spend time in the concordance looking up passages on the topic God placed on my heart, from Genesis to Revelation. One week, I felt God had led me to study being thankful. There were many exhortations that I was familiar with, such as:

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

—1 Thessalonians 5:18, NASB

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

—Philippians 4:6, NASB 1995

However, as I searched the Scriptures, I was surprised at the abundance of verses encouraging us, nay commanding us, to be thankful. I discovered that the phrase “give thanks” appears fifty-seven times in the Bible. Here is one of many such verses:

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!”

—Psalm 100:4

One particular passage that convicted me was:

“Because you did not serve Jehovah your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies.”

—Deuteronomy 28:47–48

Wow! I noted that giving thanks was not simply a pleasant thought; it carried with it an expected response. Being grateful is not an optional activity but a necessary one. God expects us to be joyful and glad of heart for all He has given us.

“At first it was a little stilted and unnatural, but the more we stuck to it, the better we became at being grateful.”

Another sobering passage was:

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

—Romans 1:21, ESV

The rest of this chapter is dark and foreboding, and yet all of the tragic results seem to hinge on honoring God as God and giving Him thanks! Simple, yet life-changing.

I am not going to rehearse the whole sermon, but the third verse that impacted me was:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy.”

—2 Timothy 3:1–2, ESV

This is certainly an accurate description of the world in which we live. But Jesus came to save us from this present world. He expects us to be different.

When I read these verses describing the last days, I noted the word “ungrateful.” As I did, the Spirit of God welled up in my heart, and I found myself saying, “Well, this world may not be thankful, but by God’s grace we are going to be!” This is the same spirit that Joshua exhibited when he declared:

“As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.”

—Joshua 24:15, HCSB

A close-up view of a child's hand writing with a pen in a notebook during a study session.

Be Doers of the Word

May I share a brief exhortation? It is one thing to study the Bible and read what it teaches about thankfulness, and it is quite another thing to actually do it. God had impressed upon my heart the account of the wise and foolish men from the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

— Matthew 7:24–27, ESV

I have often asked audiences to tell me the difference between the wise man and the foolish man. Very few people answer my query correctly. Many will say the wise man built his house on Christ, and that is incorrect. The answer is in the first eleven words of Matthew 7:24, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them.” The wise man was obedient; the foolish man was not.

Perhaps they both attended the same church and listened to the same teaching week after week. Maybe they were both part of a small group committed to reading the Bible every day. We do not know the circumstances, only that the wise man obeyed the words of Jesus and the foolish man did not. Simple obedience led to a house built on the rock, which endured the rain, the floods, and the winds. In a nutshell:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

—James 1:22, NKJV

A family sitting around a wooden table doing schoolwork and drawing projects together.

Thanks Services

To combat being ungrateful, our family began the habit, which continued for many years, of having a “thanks service” on Friday evenings. Sandi would pull out a stenographer notebook and record what was said. We took turns listing specific things for which we were thankful.

The younger the child, the more concrete their offerings, such as “I’m thankful for the ceiling fan,” or “I’m thankful for dessert.” Some weeks, we would bring out the paper calendar and look back to see what had transpired that week. This exercise stimulated our memories and led to more thank offerings.

We tried to remember to give thanks and be grateful for all things and not just the “blessings,” or the good things, as we perceived them. Scripture teaches us to be “thankful in all circumstances,” even difficult ones.

Each of these blessed evenings, we took our time going around the room until each person had an opportunity to share what was on their heart and mind. We would fill up at least one page as we exercised our thanks muscles. At first it was a little stilted and unnatural, but the more we stuck to it, the better we became at being grateful. After many years, this written record has grown into a small stack of spiral-bound notebooks, a written historical record of our family.

To God be the Glory

We also reminded ourselves:

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

—James 1:17, CSB

We sought not only to record items and instances for which we were grateful, but also to then recognize that all good gifts ultimately come from above. Thus we often ended our times together thanking God for all His goodness to us.

Bottom line, being thankful is simply good for the soul. The chorus from Johnson Oatman Jr. expressed this well, “Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your blessings, see what God hath done; Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.”

Daily Life

Beyond our weekly times recording what we were thankful for, we also sought to apply this in our day-to-day interactions. My wife was a wonderful example of being thankful. I did not grow up in a home that had regular times of reading and studying the Bible, which we call family devotions. Yet when God would help me to lead my family in this manner, my wife would always thank me for taking the initiative. Her words were precious to me.

I tried to be grateful for each meal that she prepared. Being a mom to four sons and homeschooling them is a large task, but she also made freshly milled bread and prepared most of the meals from scratch with healthy ingredients. When a meal concluded, I sought to thank her for the amazing food.

On one special occasion, we went to a miniature golf course for a family outing. We also bought ice cream before we went home. Everyone was happily piling into the van, yet I didn’t hear anyone say thank you, which saddened me. I got everyone’s attention and said, “I love doing things for our family, but it would be even better if someone said thank you.” My sons could tell this was important to me by my tone, and they immediately began to put this into practice. Anytime we had a special event, I heard, “Thanks, Pop” or “Thanks for taking us here” or something similar. It meant a lot to me, but in retrospect it was also good for them to get into the habit of being grateful and expressing thanks.

Now you know more about why our son John reached for the “Thanks Book.” Recording our items of praise is no longer a weekly event, but we do seek to be grateful on special occasions such as Thanksgiving or our annual Labor Day celebration on a lake.

I hope each of you reading this will find ways to be grateful in your homes this coming year.

teve Demme and his wife Sandra have been married since 1979. They have been blessed with four sons, three lovely daughters-in-law, and six special grandchildren. Their fourth son has Down syndrome and lives with them in Lititz, PA. Steve has served in full or part-time pastoral ministry for many years after graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the creator of Math-U-See and the founder of Building Faith Families.

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