That's something I've found myself thinking or saying a lot recently. It's in the captions on my Facebook pictures, it's in my tweets as I reflect on the day, it's a hashtag on my Instagram photos of the beach, or a sunset. But all too often, I don't live my life in a way that reflects gratefulness.
Today I got home from taking a week-long intensive course at my school on the book of Psalms. There are one hundred and fifty Psalms and they can be organized into different categories, some of them being: lament, praise, thanksgiving, penitential, and enthronement Psalms. On the day that my professor talked about praise Psalms, something that he said really stuck out to me. He said, "Praise places us outside of ourselves and causes us to recognize that life is a gift". The knowledge that life is gift is something that although I logically know is true, it easily gets forgotten. Instead, too often we wind up getting consumed by the struggles and stresses of life.
I tend to be someone who gets anxious about a lot of things, so constantly being grateful no matter the situation is something that I've recently been striving to improve on. While this isn't from the Psalms, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 provides a good reminder to us that as Christians we are called to
"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."One simple strategy that can be used to put this into play is to start each morning by thinking of three things that you're thankful for; I got this idea from one of my pastors. Generally you'll start out with simple things like "family, friends, and pizza" but the more time you spend thinking about it, you'll end up with a list like "strength to get through every day, God's grace and unconditional love, and the joy that is found in friendships". Keep in mind that both lists are okay! It's perfectly fine to be grateful for the small things in life (pizza is delicious, after all); sometimes you have a hard day and the small things are all you can think of to be thankful for. But no matter what, it's necessary to remember that God is good, just, and loving, and He is worthy of all of our praise.
As an extension to that idea, lately I've enjoyed reflecting each day by taking my journal at night and making a list of ten things that I was grateful for within that day. That's also great because when I look back on previous journal entries, I'll remember specific things that I did that day!
Another important (and related) reminder that my professor gave this week is:
"To praise God is to live, and to live is to praise God."Sometimes I seem to forget that every single moment, object, and human being was created by God. It's a thought that I can't fully fathom. But that statement from my professor is so awesome; it brings me right back to creation. God is the author of everything, and while He didn't need us in order to sustain Himself, He chose to create humankind. And that thought brings me back to the first point that I mentioned from my professor. Life is a gift. And it's one that God graciously grants us each morning, and for that I'm grateful. I long to live out each moment of this gift giving total praise to our God.
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