Published in the Perimeter Church worship bulletin on 11-28-18
A couple of years ago at Thanksgiving, in an attempt to develop more of a lens of gratitude through which I would view and experience all of life, I challenged myself to write down one thing, every day for which I was thankful. The challenge was to do it for an entire year and to not repeat things that I had already journaled!
Now, two years later (almost to the day), I have to say that this has been one of the most beneficial practices that I’ve undertaken in my spiritual journey. While I often feel like I’m not nearly as grateful as I’d like to be, I’m quite confident that my lens of gratitude has developed and continues to develop.
I’ve been challenged to not just be grateful for the big, obvious things in my everyday life, but to pay attention to the smaller, less noticeable things that I otherwise would probably miss altogether. As I’ve taken time this Thanksgiving to read through the 18 pages of specific and unique things I’ve been thankful for each day of this past year, I’ve been reminded in detail, of God’s great love and provision for me, in ways that I would have most definitely forgotten.
As we transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas, perhaps this might be an opportunity for you to be more intentional towards developing a greater lens of gratitude in your own life. Make it easy. Use the Notes App in your phone (that’s what I do) or pick up a journal and jot down a brief entry at the end of each day. You’re probably going to miss some days (like I have), but you can go back and fill them in or just don’t worry about it and keep going. One thing is for sure, our faith and love for God will be bolstered by every day that we spend intentional time reflecting on specific ways that we have experienced God’s goodness and faithfulness in our lives.
The heart and outflow of the Christian faith is a deep sense of gratitude for what Christ has done to lavish His love upon us, to make us acceptable to God by clothing us in His own righteousness, and to make us adopted sons and daughters of the Most High God, whom we can now call… Daddy (Galatians 4). Let the truth of the gospel wash over your heart, mind, and soul, and ask God to increase your experience of gratitude for His great love for you. As we become a people of gratitude, the natural outcome will be for the Source of our gratitude (which is the love of Christ) to overflow out from us and into the lives of those around us.
druewarner 