Growing Thankfulness

I am convinced that being thankful is a learned habit more than a natural tendency. Most people have had to choose to be thankful. I know for me I need to remind myself to find thankfulness.

In the course of life, it is easy to get so focused on problem solving we cannot see things for which we can be thankful. it is very easy to see the problems and be consumed with them. When we do this we can believe there is nothing for which to be thankful. Even as I write this idea I can hear in my mind the objection, “we always have something for which we can be thankful.” While the objection is true, we do not live in that head space. In the midst of the stress and hurry of the moment we focus and operate on the bad.

If you are like me, you are probably thinking or even saying that you are always thankful even if you do not say it. I have come to realize in my life that I am not truly thankful if I do not say my thankfulness aloud. Thinking thankful thoughts does not makes us thankful people. We need to verbalize thankfulness.

When I miss out on being thankful I become much more unkind, stressed, and negative. I decided several years ago that I did not want to become a bitter, stressed and angry man as I grew older. I chose to incorporate a discipline of choosing thankfulness every day so that I would grow more kind and as a result I have also become more happy and less stressed as well. Each day I write down and share three things in the morning for which I am thankful and three things at the end of the day for which I am thankful. This choice has truly helped me grow to be more of the person Jesus wants me to be.