48 Ways to Show Thankfulness

November 27, 2025 by: Sam Crabtree

Ideas for Expressing Gratitude

Why do we need suggestions on how to express gratitude? Shouldn’t a truly grateful heart just naturally overflow in expressing that gratefulness, without needing to be prompted by tips? Well, yes. But recall that while the Bible speaks of acts of love bubbling over from transformed and loving hearts, it nevertheless gives us lots of instruction in how love might behave, including exhortations and commands to do it this way or that. Similarly, the truly grateful heart may be increasingly open to counsel on how to go about showing thankfulness. To such a heart, suggestions don’t feel like a burden. Or like law.

Since gratitude isn’t merely a doctrine to learn but a spiritual mindset to experience, below are “starters” for the heart hungry for ideas on how to demonstrate gratitude. Each of the following suggestions is easily made God-centered. For example, when thanking the pastor for a good sermon, you can say something like “I thank God for your faithful preaching,” or some expression that places God in the center of the good being performed by that preacher.

Practicing Thankfulness

Practicing Thankfulness

Sam Crabtree

Pastor Sam Crabtree surveys the Bible’s teaching on gratitude, demonstrating that every moment is an opportunity to observe, embrace, and appreciate with thankfulness the wondrous workings of God in ordinary life.

  1. My church provides a worship folder or bulletin. I routinely jot notes to myself on it as the service moves along, reminding me to thank people such as the pastor for his faithful and timely word, or the musicians for their practice and execution, or the ushers for alertly welcoming newcomers, or the folks who keep the coffee urns refilled, and so on.

  2. Express thanks up and down the chain of command—thank your supervisor, those you oversee, and your peers. (While there’s a proactive aspect of leadership—initiating action and pulling the team forward—there’s also a vitally important reactive aspect. In a job I held for fifteen years, I was responsible for more than 250 employees on the pay roll. I invested significant time and attention thanking and commending people for what they were doing. It’s good for morale, it highlights what’s valued, and it rewards good behaviors and patterns. Behaviors rewarded tend to recur.)

  3. Write a prayer that is only thanks and praise—no requests.

  4. Say to your children or grandchildren, “I want to be a thankful person. Tell me, who do you think I should thank for something?” Ask them to be specific. Then follow through.

  5. Thank God that he uses all things to conform you to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29). Specifically, think of one of the most difficult things he has allowed in your life. Thank God for how he has used that difficulty to help you become more like Jesus in some specific way (such as gentleness, endurance, compassion, courage, or wisdom.)

  6. Write a new verse to a Thanksgiving hymn.

  7. Stock up on thank-you note cards and envelopes. Don’t put them all away; keep at least one of them out to immediately write and send a thank-you.

  8. Contact a civic leader and thank him or her for something specific—the recent pothole repairs, the training for the police officers, or the new street sign.

  9. When spotting workers cleaning public restrooms, or picking up litter in or near a store, or emptying the garbage receptacles at the park, thank them for keeping the place shipshape.

  10. Start early to plan a short speech of gratitude for your family gathering at Thanksgiving. Perhaps thank God for something unique about each family member.

  11. Thank God for “common graces,” the provisions he gives alike to all people: the sunrise, rain, air, chirping songbirds, the passing of the seasons, tides that circulate the oceans, gravity, and so on.

  12. Thank God for “particular graces,” which he gives only to believers: election, predestination to justification, calling, regeneration, propitiation, adoption, repentance, sanctification, and glorification.

  13. Read Ephesians 2:8, then thank God for your faith.

  14. Thank God for your eyes that can read. Read about the wondrous complexity of your eyes, and thank God for each part of your eye and its wonderful function.

  15. I receive numerous update letters from missionaries around the world. I often scribble comments on them and mail them back, so that we’re having a conversation. I’m especially grateful for photographs they include, so I say so. Consider what expressions of thankfulness you might extend to a missionary, and to God for that missionary.

  16. Take a lined sheet of paper and write the letters of the alphabet vertically down the left margin. Then list things that begin with each letter of the alphabet and thank God for each of them. This is a simple exercise to do with children.

  17. Thank God for a bad habit he has enabled you to overcome.

  18. Thank God for a good habit he has established in your life.

  19. Thank someone who has influenced your life and helped you address a habit—a coach who helped you with your swing of the bat at the plate, a physician who helped you quit smoking, a mentor who encouraged your pattern of Bible reading, a counselor who helped you improve your relationships or self-acceptance, and so on.

  20. Look at one of your body parts, and thank God for it. Look more closely—perhaps with a magnifying glass—and thank God for the component parts. What lies beneath the skin? Thank God for those parts too. Thank God for things like digestion, respiration, and circulation that keep that body part alive and functioning.

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  1. Meditate on these words of David: “I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, / and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High” (Ps. 7:17). Sing a song that gives thanks to God. Invite someone to sing it with you.

  2. Go for a walk and find a dozen things to thank God for.

  3. Thank someone you’ve never before thanked.

  4. Memorize Psalm 100. Find at least seven things in those five short verses to thank God for.

  5. Write a note to the pastor of a church other than your own, thanking him for his partnership in the great gospel cause.

  6. Thank the Father (John 14:26) and Jesus (John 15:26) for sending the Holy Spirit. Explain what difference it makes to you that he was sent.

  7. The Holy Spirit is called the Helper. Thank him for some specific help he has given.

  8. List things money cannot buy. Give thanks to God and others for them.

  9. Name a biblical promise God has made. Thank him for that promise.

  10. Have you received a compliment from someone? Say thank you to that person. And thank God for giving you the wherewithal to do what you’re being complimented for. Invite the person who complimented you to join you in giving thanks to God.

  11. Do something nice anonymously for someone. Since it’s anonymous, he or she won’t be able to thank you. Let that absence of gratitude to you intensify the humble gratefulness in your own heart toward God who has given you a zillion things for which you haven’t thanked him.

  12. As part of eating at a restaurant, consider accompanying your generous tip with words of appreciation for such things as alertness (refilling your glass), cheerfulness in serving you, and so on.

  13. Conduct an “open mic” time when individuals can come to the mic and fill in the blank: “I thank God for _____.” Or, how about a “thankful wall” at work? Or a whiteboard in your classroom?

  14. Thank family members for something associated with each room of the house—thank them for hanging up their coats in the entry, for putting their bicycles away in the garage, for doing another load of laundry, for organizing the stuff in the trunk in the attic, for putting the dishes in the dishwasher, for hanging up towels, for putting socks in the hamper, for shoveling the walks, and so on.

  15. Thank God for the courage and faithfulness of a specific Christian martyr by name. If you can’t think of any, consult resources such as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs or the website of Voice of the Martyrs.

  16. Do you know someone who’s consistently grateful? (Don’t hurry past this question; pause until you come up with a name.) Thank that person for his or her good example.

  17. To express my thanks, I wrote to previous pastors who led churches I attended down through the years, starting in my boyhood. (Some are deceased, so I wrote to their widows.) I also contacted previous high school and college teachers I hadn’t seen for decades. Every response from them was warm. Who helped you years or decades ago? A Sunday school teacher? Your first employer? Let them know you still think of them to this very day with gratitude.

  18. Take a photo every day of something you are thankful to God for. Make a gallery.

  19. Do you have a favorite book of the Bible or a favorite verse? Thank God for that specific writer by name, and for the circumstances that led to the writing of that passage.

  20. Reflect on these opening words from Psalm 75: “We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near” (Ps. 75:1). Notice that word for. It points to the basis, the reason for giving thanks. What should we do when God’s name is near? Give thanks. Plunder the riches of the Bible, looking for reasons for giving thanks. And then—give thanks.

Plunder the riches of the Bible, looking for reasons for giving thanks. And then—give thanks.

  1. Pray a prayer of confession admitting thanklessness. Then thank God for forgiveness and cleansing.

  2. Stand in front of a cupboard or drawer or closet and thank God for each and every item in there.

  3. Send a thank-you note to someone who expressed Godward words of comfort during a time when you were struggling—words that seemed to be a personal touch of Jesus in your life.

  4. God used key individuals as instruments in leading you to faith in him. Thank him for the individuals who led those people to the Lord.

  5. Our responsibilities and obligations can often feel more like burdens than blessings. But these are privileges, when seen through grateful eyes. Everything from paying taxes to changing the baby’s diaper can be a privilege when you think of the services purchased by the taxes, or of the babies whose digestive systems don’t work properly, and so on. List some of your responsibilities and thank God that he has given them to you to carry out for his glory.

  6. Has a piece of music ever elicited your tears or made you tap your toes with upbeat enjoyment? Marvel at this, and give thanks that God designed a world in which catgut or wire (for violin strings) can be strapped to a wooden box (violin or fiddle), and then rubbed with horse hairs (of all things!) fastened to a rod (the bow), and that those vibrating strings can then jiggle the molecules in the air until the vibrations reach your ear, where they’re transferred through wax and a thin drumlike membrane and three tiny bones, onward to the intricate cochlear nerve up to the brain, where—voilà—you hear it as toe-tapping “Oh! Suzanna” or the mournful romantic second movement of a Tchaikovsky violin concerto. Amazing! God invented the whole auditory apparatus that makes that happen. Thank him that he designed the universe and your body and soul to operate in these ways. Thank him for the whole material universe that makes music possible, and thank him for individual component parts.

  7. Look through your wallet, and allow the contents to trigger expressions of gratitude. Thank God for such things as the date of your birth, your health insurance, your ability to drive a motor vehicle, and so on.

  8. You breathe about twenty-three thousand times per day. Don’t take it for granted. To paraphrase Psalm 150:6, let everything that has breath give thanks—thanks for that breath and for everything else.

This article is adapted from Practicing Thankfulness: Cultivating a Grateful Heart in All Circumstances.

Sam Crabtree

Sam Crabtree is a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has served for over twenty years. He is a former public-school teacher, is the chairman of the board of Bethlehem College & Seminary, and is the author of Practicing Affirmation. Sam and his wife, Vicki, live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and have two daughters and six grandchildren.

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