Enter with the password: “Thank you!” Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him. For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever. Psalm 100:4-5 (The Message)
Photo by [Mark Rasmuson on Unsplash]
The daily gifts of God are many – vibrant, lush, and ever present symbols of His generosity.
Finding ourselves in the middle of such lavish generosity we can, by practicing regular rhythms of gratefulness, begin to train ourselves to notice the gifts God is constantly strewing across the path of our lives with more regularity and deeper appreciation.
Gratefulness is a natural antidote to depression according to neuroscience, and a cultivated practice of giving thanks for the smallest gifts pouring toward us daily like a rolling waterfall changes the mind in both physical and non-physical ways.
Find your tools that train you for thankfulness; fill your car with the music that lifts you, practice a daily examen multiple times a day, keep a thankfulness journal on your desk – always ready – to be filled with moments of appreciation. Do whatever it takes to become the new person you want to be.
Then, resolve to change your speech. Let thankfulness become your new mother tongue, your new first language.
Step by step, by continued practice, you will learn the virtue of thankfulness. And your life will begin, in both your perception and your identity, to change.
A Prayer
Spirit of God, my ability to perceive Your constant gifts is limited. At times my eyes, heart, and mind are so heavy with lack, fear, and an ominous sense of Your absence. I am ready to, like an athlete, go into thankfulness training – that I might begin to see You and Your gifts to me everywhere.
In Jesus’ gifting, giving Name,
Amen. +
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