Propositional Vs. Prepositional Gratitude

In Philosophy, there are two major types of gratitude. Propositional gratitude is when we are thankful that something happened. We’re grateful that it doesn’t rain on our wedding day. Prepositional gratitude, on the other hand, is when we are grateful to someone for something that they have done for us. We’re grateful to our neighbor for taking care of our dogs for the weekend. The first kind of gratitude is more like undirected gladness for a favorable state of affairs. We can be happy when things go our way but it is a little harder to find something to focus our gratitude on. However, when we have a clear idea of who has helped us and how they’ve helped us, then we can be more specific and also more meaningful with our gratitude. It is easy to be glad when the sun is shining, but much harder when we are getting drenched. If we are having a hard time with propositional gratitude because there is little in our lives that brings us any joy or pleasure, then we should make a deliberate choice and a concentrated effort to focus on prepositional gratitude. Find someone or something that has lightened our burden even a single feather’s worth, and choose to be grateful for that. Our Father in Heaven causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the wicked and the just. We all have good days and bad days. It is ludicrous to expect us to conjure up some undirected gladness that horrible things are happening to us. However, God does not, will not, cannot forget about us. He has graven us into the palms of His hands. He will not leave us comfortless. He will send angels into our lives, either earthly angels or heavenly. If we can’t be unambiguously glad of our circumstances, God will give us specific reasons for which to be grateful. If we can’t see any reason to be grateful, we need to look harder. We need to look harder, not by gritting our teeth and pretending to smile, but by earnestly looking for the Lord’s tender mercies in our lives. If we can’t be grateful that then we need to find something to be grateful for. When a thousand things are going wrong, we can choose to focus on the one tiny thing that’s going right. Our horrible day will still be there even after we’ve taken one brief moment to smell the roses, but we’ll have chosen to be grateful for one small tender mercy anyway.