Why Thankfulness is For Christians, Not Just New Age Positive Thinking

I heard many years ago about gratitude journals or being thankful every morning. Even now it sounds like a ridiculous new age meditation practice to me, but I have made thankfulness a priority and everyday practice.

Several years ago, my counselor assigned me to write down 10 things everyday that I was thankful for. I only do seven now (the number is doable but still significant), but I do it everyday. During our family bible time on Sunday nights, we take turns saying things that we're thankful to God for. 

I have found two reasons that thankfulness is so important in the Bible. 

First, thankfulness protects us from anxiety. Philippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Thankfulness (and putting our needs on God's to-do list) has a protective function.

This means that gratitude to God (maybe done continually) will guard my heart from anxiety! I want that. 

When I was really struggling with anger, despair, and depression several years ago, I had to grasp at reasons to be thankful. Sometimes I listed the same thing several times. I thanked God for coffee, fountain pen ink, and things in my garden. These days, I don't struggle with those things as much, and I find that the world is filled with reasons to thank God. When I do, I see the whole world with God's fingerprints. I see him present and working in my life. Do you see how that would protect my heart from worry?

Second thankfulness is worship. Psalm 100:4 says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving   and his courts with praise;   give thanks to him and praise his name." Notice the symmetry between thanks and praise in each half of the verse. This happens all through the psalms. Thankfulness and praise are interchanged. I first noticed it when reading it in the NLT translation, but every translation makes this clear.

Those two things are things I want. I want my heart protected from anxiety. I also want to worship. I want my heart inclined to worship God and not things, so I'm training my eyes to see reasons to thank God. When I thank him for big and small things, I'm worshiping and protecting my heart. 

Give it a try. Make a list every morning of seven reasons you are thankful to God. 

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