There are many ways we can live a life of gratitude and thanksgiving. While these two expressions are often used interchangeably they do have two different points of focus.
Gratitude is defined by Merriam-Webster as, a feeling of appreciation or thanks.
Thanksgiving is defined as, a public acknowledgment or celebration of divine goodness; a prayer expressing gratitude.
So one is connected to an overall feeling of appreciation to anything or anyone. The other is directly connected to divine celebration of goodness, especially through prayer.
Since prayer is simply when we address God and make our petitions or requests known, living daily in a place of thanksgiving should be a relatively easy act. We don’t need anything extra to speak to our creator. It doesn’t require anything more of us outside of us. And we can do it anytime, any where. Same with gratitude. I often say ‘gratitude directly effects our attitude’. It’s all about perspective and how we choose to perceive things as they occur. Practicing gratitude daily has a way of cleaning up our attitude and refocusing our attention.
Have you ever been around a person who always seems to bring up the negative things that are happening in the world and around them? They spend most of their conversation retelling the dramas of the news, or the workplace, or other gossip. I know I have been in the presence of that person before. I may have even been that person at a space in time. I recall saying to someone one day, we have been talking for 20 minutes and everything that has come out of you has been a negative. What was something that happened today you can be grateful for? Crickets. The point is, we all have things we can point to and say this went wrong or this is not going well. Or things we are still dealing with further back in our past that may still carry a sting or make us feel broken or cynical. Maybe things we don’t understand that have happened. But we still have a choice. We can exchange the narrative from one filled with doom and gloom, to one of light and acceptance. To put our focus not only visually, but in thought, on how and what we speak, and on a deeper level, our heart posture to be focused on daily gratitude and thanksgiving.
I remember a time when I was going through a set of extremely unfavorable events. There was nothing but hurt and brokenness all around me. Things were just not going well. I was crying everyday and not able to pull out of it. I read a book called You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise L Hay. This book talks about the power of our thoughts and how we speak and think over ourselves plays a part in keeping us either stuck in a diminishing unhealthy pattern or liberates us into living free and full. I began to do the work to start to turn my thoughts around and eventually my entire attitude and how I was showing up in my life. Once I began on the journey so many windows of peace and love started to open up in my life. My journey brought me to a deeper understanding of who God is and what He says about me. That I can move from a victim mentality to a victor mentality because of His love and purpose in my life. Understanding the actual moments when I was someones victim, I can reject from becoming a burden of a life sentence. I learned how to disempower that situation and activate my power as a survivor through healing. The tools and clarity the Bible offers on the subject are unmatched. Yes it has taken time, and I’m not yet a walking gratitude journal. I am however, intentionally focused on how I think, speak over myself, and release the unfavorable and hurtful things after I have processed them, holding on to the true, lovely, admirable, honorable, pure, excellent & praiseworthy things just like Philippians 4:8 has taught. These things I choose to think of often.
So what can we do to start living this life of freedom with gratitude and thanksgiving? It starts with our mindset. I often pray God, please continue to transform me by renewing my mind.
We can also start changing the way we recall our daily happenings and the perspective from which we share them.
Remembering that not everything is happening “to us”, victim position, but most of the time it’s “for us”, victor position changes things.
Forgetting the “I have to, had to”, go to work, ungrateful position, and having the awareness to say “I get to, got to” go to work, help my mom, go buy groceries, keeps us speaking from a place of gratitude and thankfulness. When we simply change the way we talk about even the most remedial things in our life, we begin to train ourselves to live in gratitude.
As long as we are thankful/grateful for the many things that God is doing for us, most of which we do not get to see. We can actively live in thanksgiving. Grateful for what is happening “for” us, even if it is shift in your job status, or a relationship break up. And ALWAYS thankful for what we “get” to do, because some can’t afford groceries, your mom is not going to walk this earth forever, and there are people who could benefit from an income even more than you because of their deplorable living conditions. We can push through to our victories and healing. We can come to the understanding that just being able to be in the struggle sometimes has a way of being its own victory. And PRAISE HIM all along the way…. My first act of thanksgiving that I start every day with, is when I open my eyes in the morning. I thank God for keeping me through the night and allowing me to see another day, because as long as I have breath… you already know. My last act of thanksgiving comes just before I close my eyes to sleep. I thank God no matter what happened that day, if it was troublesome or unfavorable, or whatever, I thank God for bringing me through to the possibility of getting another chance to do more tomorrow. And throughout my day I am able to be grateful especially for the little treasures of life and from there it just multiplies…
It all begins with having the presence of mind to commit to yourself daily, too slowing down enough to begin to examine your thoughts and see how you are perceiving your day, situations and others around you. From there you can start to remove, diminishing, dishonoring, negative thoughts each day. The thoughts that diminish and dishonor the goodness of God in you, and them. Choosing to seek the one honoring, excellent, admirable, thing about that person, or yourself in the situation. Sometimes it’s a “Thank You God, for sustaining me through this…” See how you experience your life changes as you grow forward. Peace, joy, love, light, freedom, thankfulness will be evident.
I love you and I’m grateful for the purpose of your life in this world!
~Shaherah~
How are you going to be intentional in your gratitude and thanksgiving walk this year? 🙏🏾💜
Prayer: Father God, thank you for helping me to keep my eyes focused on you and giving me yet another opportunity to choose how I show up in my own story. Through your Spirit I am reminded of what is good. You are good. Continue to transform me from the inside out by renewing my mind, & my thoughts. I give you authority over my tongue, so that you may restrain, check, and guide the words I speak about myself, others, and situations I experience. Forgive me when I have surrendered my thoughts, attitude, and dialogue to a less than honorable position. Thank you for your continued pursuit of our relationship. Thank you for the healing that comes as we go together. I want more of you! Manifest your love in me so deep that I walk in the joy of you daily.
It is so!
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