In this post I want to talk about gratitude in the face of trials. And I want to start this off in maybe an untraditional way, because nothing feels worse than having someone who has sailed through life lecture you about gratitude or perseverance. Obviously, we are not usually the best judges of this kind of thing. However, when someone is dismissive of your trails it’s a decent indicator that they don’t really understand. But I want to start this by sharing some of my trials so that when I talk about gratitude you know that it is not something I share lightly.
Currently, I am a divorced father separated from my two daughters after my ex-wife cheated on me. Due to persistent mental health and other factors I struggle to keep regular employment. I have struggled to keep the commandments and do follow God’s path for me, but everything I’ve done has ended up a wash. I feel completely stuck and don’t know which direction to go in life. This blog is one way I can try and make use of the things I’ve learned along the way.
Now, I don’t share all of this to make you feel bad for me, or for sympathy. I also don’t share this to stir up anger against my ex. I share this to show that no matter the trials you can have something to be grateful for.
So, what kind of gratitude can we have during difficult trials?
Three Levels of Gratitude
To answer that question I am going to share three levels of gratitude. I will call these the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial levels, although this is just for effect and not because I know of any correlation.
Before getting into that I should take a moment to describe what gratitude is; by tradition I should have started that way!
Gratitude is the attitude to recognizing and appreciating where your gifts and blessings come from. It requires that you look outside yourself for the source of your boons. It requires that you accept that forces beyond yourself influence your life. In this talk awe are interested in what things God in particular has done and is doing for us. This type of gratitude necessitates that we realize that God does influence our lives, even our trials.
Telestial Gratitude
This lowest level of gratitude consists of being grateful for what you have and who you are. Despite all your trails, you still have things. You are alive otherwise you wouldn’t be reading these words. You might have lost all of your earthly possessions, but you could still have your family. Maybe you lost your family as well. There are still people out there who would consider you a friend. And still, if you don’t have any of this, you can be grateful for your body, the beauty of the natural world and its wonders, the sky and the stars up above, the modern technologies of our world, the truths of the gospel, and so much more.
Even in the midst of trials we can still look around and see that there are things to be grateful for. Said another way, telestial gratitude is being grateful despite our trials. In this way trails becomes us one piece of a larger life. It pushes ups to look beyond the suffering to see the good around us.
If you are suffering this can be very hard to do or feel like a small consolation. This is where the next levels of gratitude come in. This level is good, but it is a lower level compared to the two that are to come.
Terrestrial Gratitude
The second level of gratitude during trials is the terrestrial level.
We as followers of Jesus Christ have much to be grateful for. No matter what trials face us we have made covenants with the God of heaven and earth and he has made promises to us. Jesus told his disciples:
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so,I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14: 1-2
It’s hard to say it much more clearly. No matter what trials we face in this life, we have been promised mansions in the next. The promise is that the next life will be glorious and peaceful. This is truly a comforting promise and while we are suffering we can lay hold on the promise of blessings. Sometimes these blessings await us in this life, but many of the promises won’t be fulfilled until the next.
Even with this level of gratitude, there is part of the sufferer that cries out to be freed from the current suffering and be taken speedily into God’s kingdom. It doesn’t mean that we are suicidal. Maybe another way to say this would be “looking forward with an eye of faith.”
Having read this you might be asking, what greater form of gratitude is there than being grateful through faith for the promise?
Celestial Gratitude
Along with being grateful for what we have, and being grateful for the blessings we have been promised. There is another more profound type of gratitude that we can have in the midst of trials. And ironically enough it is a for a blessing that we wouldn’t have access through without the trails. What blessing is that?
Personal growth.
“Wow, personal growth. That’s greaaaat,” you might say, “I have been suffering incredible pain and persistent suffering for growth?”
It’s so easy for the natural man within each of us to disregard the importance of personal growth. But the truth is that growth is the main reason why trails are given. There are many many scriptures teaching this fact, but one that addresses it most potently is from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews:
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Hebrews 12: 5-11
I don’t know that I can say it any better than that. Jesus Christ himself was not exempt from this type of trial. In fact it is implied that these trials were related to his greatness. This is how Jesus described it to Joseph Smith who was at the time unjustly incarcerated in Liberty Jail during the bitter winter of 1839, while the saints were being driven from their homes by mobs:
7. … Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
Doctrine and Covenants 122: 7-8
Though probably the most difficult form of gratitude to hold on to, this form of gratitude is the one that most closely reflects the gift God is giving us in the form of our trials. God wants us to be ever more like him, and trials are his tool for doing this.
We as Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the greatest answer to the question of evil. We experience evil in our life not despite God’s love but because of it. Though it doesn’t seem so now, eventually we will look back on these times of trial and be eternally grateful for them. They will be “but a small moment” to us.
The greatest gift that God wants to give us is the gift of becoming like him, may we receive this gift with the gratitude that it deserves.
Conclusion
While my trials have not disappeared and my difficulties are not lessened I have found strength in embracing the full range of gratitude. It’s definitely not easy, but having this eternal perspective gives me the ability to find purpose in what would otherwise by soul crushing. Gratitude really is an amazing thing, and it can help you understand God and His purposes more clearly.
This article is based on a talk I gave in Sacrament meeting Spring 2023.
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