Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: It's not hard to find advice telling us to be thankful, but Mary Kassian says if you're a child of God, thankfulness takes on a whole new meaning.

Mary Kassian: Christians ought to be the most grateful people because we have the most to be grateful for. And what is the ultimate object of our gratitude is God.

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude for November 5th, 2026. I'm Dana Gresh.

Mary Kassian: If your heart were a garden, what kind of flowers or vegetables would be growing? Be something pretty and dainty like gentleness? Or how about the rich, sweet rose of love? Do you have any gratefulness growing there? Or is your heart garden kind of neglected, full of weeds? Well, if you're like me, there's always room to grow more grateful. Mary Kassian is here to help us do just that. Here's Dana Gresh with a further introduction.

Dana Gresh: Our guest is Mary Kassian. And you know, Mary is one of the most brilliant female minds in the Christian world. She's an award-winning author, an international speaker. She's a distinguished professor of Women's Studies at Southern Seminary, hailing from Alberta, Canada. But here's what I love. As bright as she is, she makes truths that are simple, so accessible, and important. And today, she's going to help us with the simple act of growing grateful. Mary, welcome back to the Revive Our Hearts studio.

Mary Kassian: Thanks, Dana. Good to be with you. You know, thanks for that introduction. I am flattered, but let me tell you if you could have a look at my house right now, you would not think, oh, she's such a great, brilliant woman. There's so much clutter. But you know, it actually ties into our topic today.

Dana Gresh: Tell me how.

Mary Kassian: Because I was watching this TV show about how to clear clutter from your life and from your home. And I was kind of into it. You know, it showed how to roll up the socks properly and how to stack your clothing vertically instead of horizontally so it gets all messed up.

Dana Gresh: Well, and I think most importantly, I think I know what show you're talking about because I was so into it. It instructs you how to throw things away. That's part of the problem, right?

Mary Kassian: Yes. Yes. Well, exactly cuz you just hang on to things instead of getting rid of them when you don't need them anymore. But here's the the odd thing that really struck me as I was watching that show. It's, you know, get rid of the clutter, but then before you throw it out, it had this little ritual that you were supposed to go through, and you were supposed to give thanks to the object, like give thanks to the clothing. Oh, thank you piece of clothing. Thank you t-shirt. Thank you holy socks. Socks with holes in the holy, not holy, but hole full of holes.

And but it was confusing to me because the thank you didn't have an object. It's like, okay, what exactly were you thanking? Were you thanking the t-shirt? Were you thanking the people who made it? Were you thanking the you know, decluttering gods? Like there was just no object to the thank you.

Dana Gresh: I think well, the object was the t-shirt.

Mary Kassian: Yeah, I suppose so.

Dana Gresh: I tell you, I was so into that show and like I have drawers to prove it until I saw that episode and then I was like, this is just a little strange for me. Why was it? What was the discernment going off in my spirit? What was that, Mary?

Mary Kassian: Well, yesterday we talked about the fact that Christian gratitude has a far different texture to it than the type of gratitude that the world pedals. And for the Christian, gratitude is always linked to someone. And gratitude is always linked to God who is the giver of good things. We talked about James 1:17 yesterday. Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights.

Dana Gresh: I love that verse. It's one of my favorites and it reminds me that whether it is my socks with holes in them or whether it's a t-shirt that I have worn out because it just fit me so well and was so comfy that I can be thankful to God as the ultimate provider of those things.

Mary Kassian: Exactly. And so we can declutter our homes and we can go, God, thank you so much for taking such good care of me that I even am able to choose among possessions and throw some out. You have blessed me so richly. You provide my every need. And if our thanks and our gratitude is aimed toward the Lord, then we're aiming it toward the right place. And Ephesians 5:20, giving thanks always for everything. So even for our t-shirts, even for the socks that we wore out, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, that's a powerful statement. Give thanks always for everything. Now, I mean, that's pretty all-encompassing, isn't it?

Dana Gresh: Right. Well, and I mean, immediately I think about when my house is cluttered and I'm feeling a looming pressure or deadline. Gratitude doesn't come quite as easily in those times. And that's not even a hard trial. That's just a messy house, right?

Mary Kassian: It's just a messy house or pressures or anxiety or you know, if your kids have so many different activities that you're running out to, you know, shuffling them to sports and you barely have enough time to feed them or you're feeding them in the back of the van as you drive to the next appointment. We spin around in our lives and we're anxious and stressed. And yet Ephesians 5:20 gives us this amazing amazing charge to give thanks always for everything. And not just to give thanks, but to give thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dana Gresh: As you're saying that, Mary, what's unfolding in my mind is that when I face an epic, horrific trial or tribulation, I don't find it that difficult to be grateful and to direct my thoughts and my heart to God. But it is those smaller mini trials, let's call them, the messy house, the noisy kids, the you know, going into the Thanksgiving season and Christmas season, it's like a part-time job for a woman to host all of the gatherings. And those are the things that very quickly will quiet my gratitude. Do you identify with that?

Mary Kassian: I certainly do identify that. It's that constant stress in your mind, the clutter. You know, we're talking about clutter in our houses. And I know when my house gets cluttered, I I start feeling anxiety. It's the clutter in our minds and in our hearts at times that stresses us out and causes us to lose sight of gratitude and lose sight of that giving thanks always for everything kind of attitude. You know, the Bible places such a huge emphasis on gratitude, Dana. There are more than 2,000 verses in the Bible that encourage us to be grateful.

Now, that's a lot of verses. And

Dana Gresh: Yeah, you know what? My immediately thought is yeah, I guess we're not the first one to struggle with it. God wanted to get this message across, right?

Mary Kassian: Absolutely. Absolutely. You see, for the Christian, gratitude is a spirit-filled discipline. And as Nancy said, gratitude is a lifestyle, a hard-fought, grace-infused, biblical lifestyle. So that's why there's over 2,000 verses. And the verses are things like praise the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, bless the Lord, and and giving gratitude. But it 's not just giving gratitude or or having an attitude of gratitude instead of having a grumbly attitude, it's directing that gratitude to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks always for everything.

Dana Gresh: Okay, so help me get through this holiday season more grateful than I ever have. What do I need to know?

Mary Kassian: Well, I think the thing that you need to do is to think of it as a discipline. You know, when you're when you're trying to reach some sort of goal, you keep that goal in mind and maybe you write out things that you're grateful to God for and put it on a sticky note and have a gratitude wall or put it around the doorway of your your home or perhaps plan to have a time during your Thanksgiving celebration where you just focus on giving thanks always for everything to God. And directing that gratitude toward God.

Dana Gresh: Well, you bring up an interesting word there, thanks. Is that the same as gratitude? What's the difference between praising God, giving thanks, and maybe even blessing God?

Mary Kassian: Well, all of those three words are used in scripture. And praise really focuses on God's character and nature. And it expresses gratitude and awe for who he is. So when we're praising God, we're saying, God, you are this. You are that. You were so generous to us, God. You were so helpful. You are you are our peace. You are our comfort. So that's praise. We're we're focusing on God's character, who he is. And giving thanks overlaps that, but it's a little bit different because when we give thanks, we focus on God's gifts and the benefits he gives us.

So instead of just talking about his character and praising him for who he is, we express gratitude for what he does. So you know, thank you God that you provided this for me. Thank you for answering this prayer. Thank you for providing safety. Thank you for my family. Thank you that you are helping me through this trial. Giving thanks is gratitude for what God does. And then there's that other word. And we don't really understand that word a lot at times. And that is to bless God. Now, to bless is to make someone happy, but to bless God, we make him happy when we thank and praise him with the right attitude.

And that's with an attitude of reverence. When we recognize that he is God and we are not, and that is our biggest reason to have gratitude and not to have an attitude of being grumbly is that he is sovereign. He is God and he is in control. And throughout history, we've been told to bless him and to direct our praise toward him.

Dana Gresh: So praise and thanks are really forms of gratitude.

Mary Kassian: They are. Yeah.

Dana Gresh: In other words,

Mary Kassian: And actually, you know, when you're in church and you go hallelujah, that's actually also expressing gratitude. It's a really interesting word. We might not know what it means, hallelujah. That word hallelujah is actually an English transliteration of a Hebrew phrase. And the first part means hallelujah, which means praise ye. And the final syllable ya is a shortened version of God's name, Yahweh. And so it means praise ye the Lord. Praise God. Praise God. Have gratitude toward the Lord for who he is. That's actually what hallelujah means. And originally, I mean, the word is so fascinating.

Originally, it was a call to worship. It was a command where the priests would go, okay, it's time to give thanks to God people and it's time to come worship and it's time to praise God. And the priests use that to open up their service and then to close this liturgical reading. And you see it actually in the book of Psalms where hallelujah often will open up a Psalm or close it.

Dana Gresh: Makes me want to use that word. I feel like we've lost it in many of our denominations. We've lost the beauty of that word and therefore then the use of it. But it seems like it might be a pretty significant one for us to reclaim.

Mary Kassian: It's a huge significant word. You know, in the New Testament times, they often called out hallelujah as a spontaneous cry of gratitude, of praise and thanksgiving toward God. And the book of Revelation, here's where it gets really interesting because it the book of Revelation shows that the angels in heaven are singing out hallelujah, hallelujah before the throne of God. So they're actually giving God gratitude and recognizing who he is, praising him for who he is on a constant basis. That's what's happening in heaven right now.

Dana Gresh: It's beautiful. You know, I heard somebody recently say that when we come to church, we don't begin to worship. When we wake up in the morning and open our Bibles or our journals to praise the Lord, we don't begin to praise. We don't begin to write our thanks to God. We're joining what's already been happening all night long before the throne of God. We are ushered into something that is not only global, but otherworldly and supernatural.

Mary Kassian: It's supernatural and it's happening constantly. And I think that's one of the reasons that that the Bible instructs us to put gratitude into our lives, to work gratitude into our systems as an ongoing lifestyle because that's what's happening in heaven. And that's the lifestyle in a sense of the angels in heaven, of the the heavenly host have this lifestyle of recognizing the greatness and the goodness of God. And that's actually what what gratitude boils down to. And that's where it is so different than just a secular idea. Gratitude is a Christian discipline where we recognize the glory of God.

Dana Gresh: Yeah, it's directed at him. You know, I noticed that your book Growing Grateful, this book of 101 meditations, which by the way is phenomenal, it's kind of like having training wheels on in terms of just starting your day out with the inability to fall over in grumpiness or grumbling. And it it just kind of forces you to have the language of heaven on your tongue. But one of the things I noticed, Mary, is that almost all of the meditations are about God. They're not about our holy socks. And that is the socks with holes in them that we don't want to give up or our t-shirts or our things.

They're about God.

Mary Kassian: Right. Yeah.

Dana Gresh: Why is that?

Mary Kassian: Well, I think Christians ought to be the most grateful people because we have the most to be grateful for. And what is the ultimate object of our gratitude is God. And who God is. He's good. He's all-powerful. He He reigns. He's He's holy. He's wise. And when I look at a sunset, I know I just snapped a picture of my husband and I were driving just on the highway the other day. And there was just this this sunset and the sky was crimson and was like this this spotlight of red in the middle of this golden yellow sky.

It was and and the the fields of harvest all alongside, it was breathtaking. It was breathtaking. And my cry at that moment was not, oh, I am so grateful for the scenery. My cry at that moment was, I am so grateful, God, that you are so creative. You are an artist. This is spectacular. So our gratitude being, you know, directed toward him and oh, he's he's happy. He's merciful. There are so many things about God that that are spectacular and that we can be grateful for.

Dana Gresh: You know what word is rising up in my heart that I feel like I need to say?

Mary Kassian: Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Dana Gresh: Oh, it just as you were saying that, I just felt it in me. Like I wanted it to come out. And you know, I think there have been times in my life where I would hear a conversation like this and tune out and be like those kooky women. What? And what I have learned is that the more I'm in the word and the more I'm in the presence of other women like you who speak the language of gratitude, the language of praise, the language of thanks, the more it makes sense to me. And the more it naturally pops out of me.

You know, I love gardening. I have dahlias and gladiolas and roses and I marvel every year to just grow something new that I've never grown before. And when it blooms, I burst into praise. It's a miracle to me every time. I don't think I was always like that, but I direct my thanks to God. Lord, thank you for that beautiful dinner plate, Dahlia, that is brightening my day. What a wonderful God you are. You must have been feeling very cheerful when you made that bright yellow color. You know, I just that's how I that's how I talk when I'm walking through my flower beds.

And that is a I guess would sound a little crazy to some people.

Mary Kassian: Well, I think that Christians perception on gratitude is so much different because the word of God moves gratitude away from a me-centered focus to a God-centered focus. It's not just, oh, I'm happy about this because this this serves me. This is about me. This is about my happiness, my joy, about me feeling comfortable, about me being in a place where, you know, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling good. This is more gratitude for who God is, what God does. It's about him. And a lifestyle of gratitude involves the discipline of meditating on the attributes of God and giving him thanks and praise.

And you know what, Dana, just the fact that you look at your flowers and the flowers evoke praise to God. And I look at the sunset and I'm driving and that evokes it just stirs up in my spirit this praise and this adoration of the God who is so creative. That just shows that the Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts and in our lives because that is a mark directing the praise to God and all of creation speaking his name and calling out to us through the beauty and through through what's going on and and pointing us towards God.

That's why he created those things.

Dana Gresh: Yeah. So of these attributes you just listed good, all-powerful, reigns, holy, wise, creative, you're really getting landing on this whole idea of God being creative. But today but that was a few days ago or a while ago that you saw that. What are what are you feeling today? What are you feeling grateful for today, Mary?

Mary Kassian: I am really grateful that God reigns. And I know that our friend Nancy has a always on text when we're texting back and forth, she'll tell us about something very difficult. And then she'll finish her text by saying heaven rules.

Dana Gresh: Heaven rules.

Mary Kassian: Heaven rules. How many times have we heard that, Dana, from Nancy?

Dana Gresh: Over and over.

Mary Kassian: Over and over that God reigns. He's this hasn't taken him by surprise. He's in control. And when our world seems out of control, he is in control. And I'm so grateful for that because it would be easy to feel overwhelmed and out of control with all the circumstances that are going on. But God reigns. And we can be so grateful that he's still on the throne.

Dana Gresh: I don't know if this is a character quality of God. I think it is because it's the name of God, Emmanuel. I have been so grateful that in the middle of this crazy year, God is with me. God is with us. He is here. He is in the midst of it. I think about the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and seeing in that fiery trial King Nebuchadnezzar looked and saw. And Jesus was there in the flames with them. He's with you in this hard year. We can be grateful for that alone.

Mary Kassian: Absolutely. I'm grateful that God is my helper. I can't tell you the number of times each day, especially as as right now I'm struggling with the end of a writing deadline and I'm just going, oh God, I need your help. I need your wisdom. I need you to give me words. I need you to untie my tongue so I can speak in a way that honors you and actually tells your story in a way that does it justice. Oh, Father, please be my helper. And I'm so grateful that you help me in all things. So when we make that discipline of gratitude and focusing on God, it changes us, doesn't it?

Dana Gresh: It sure does. Mary Kassian has been reminding us that true gratitude is from the Holy Spirit and it's God-centered. Did you know that when you practice that kind of gratitude, it's a cure for discontent? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth talked about that. She says when life is hard, it's easy to complain and to compare yourself to other people.

Mary Kassian: But the contented heart says, I recognize that even in the midst of these painful, difficult circumstances, there's a God who is still good. He is still sovereign. He is still in control. But God has a plan in mind that is bigger than we are because you see, it's not about us. It's not about our happiness ultimately. It's about God's glory. It's about giving the world a right opinion of God. And in order for God to fulfill his purposes, there are times when he allows us to go through situations that we cannot understand, that make no sense to us and that cause our eyes to be filled with tears.

You've been there. There's a circumstance and you say it's so hard to walk through this. But Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every situation.

Dana Gresh: So how about you? Are you facing circumstances that tempt you to complain? Turn to God in gratitude. Thank him for his faithfulness. Thank him for his word. If you need a reminder to do that, you'll love our 2027 wall calendar. Each spread contains beautiful art by Sierra Deer King and encouragement from Nancy to help you fall in love with scripture afresh. And I hope it will prompt you to wonder at God's word every time you check to see when your next dentist appointment is or maybe when you need to drive your daughter to that birthday party.

And this month when you contact Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount, we'll send you the new calendar. You can donate at reviveourhearts.com and be sure to request your calendar. Mary, this has been such a practical, helpful conversation on gratitude. By the way, friends, if you've missed any of it and you want to catch every word, visit reviveourhearts.com to find past episodes. Mary, tomorrow you're going to help us get our grateful on. What should we expect?

Mary Kassian: Get our grateful socks on. Well, tomorrow we're actually going to be talking about how we choose to be grateful even when life is hard. And that is the most difficult thing of all is choosing to have gratitude in those tough times.

Dana Gresh: We certainly need that conversation this year. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts. This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.