Take your pick: There is overwhelming evidence in the scriptures and in science that tell us about the vital benefits of consciously counting your blessings. ... Just Google it and you'll go down a very long rabbit hole.
For instance, people who actively work at developing an attitude of gratitude tend to be happier, less depressed and less anxious, as well as receiving benefits such as a release of toxic emotions and the promotion of positive activity in the brain's region where learning takes place.
That's the scientific evidence, of course. But what about the evidence presented in the scriptures that gratitude is beneficial to us?
Well, Google that ... and you'll find a slew of scriptures devoted to exhorting us to be grateful for God's gifts of love and mercy. Dozens of verses about gratitude, nearly guaranteeing that there is one to suit any circumstance.
I am particularly fond of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
But the trick, of course, as we all know, is that living a life of gratitude needs to become an exercise that we practice intentionally, just like any other positive habit we want to instill in our life.
Want to eat healthier? You have to be intentional about it. ... You want to become more physically fit? You have to be intentional about it. ... Want to become more acquainted with your Bible? you have to be intentional about it.
Money management, more spiritual, more knowledgeable, and on and on. You name the practice, and if you want to change that aspect of your life, you have to be intentional about building it into a habit. And we all know how incredibly difficult it can be to develop new, positive habits. ... Just ask anyone who's ever made a New Year's resolution!
"This is all great, Pastor," I can hear you're brain thinking, "But, just how do we instill this new effort to become more grateful in our already overwhelming lives! It's one more thing to feel guilty about!"
Got it! Understood! ... And my answer is that we already know the equation: For a person to be open to change, the pain of staying the same has to outweigh the pain of changing up something in our life. Which, unfortunately means, that if we want to receive the healthy benefits of habitually living out of gratitude, we have to endure the uncomfortableness of giving up our old ways of pessimism and negative thought patterns. ... After all, we are rewiring our brain here!
Full admission: I'm still working on my own gratitude practices, and I have found that I need help reinforcing them. Which brings me to this point: Please let me introduce to you a very simple phone app that is beginning to help me make gratitude a more central role in my life.
In late January, in the book "The Holy and the Hybrid: Navigating the Church's Digital Reformation," by Ryan M. Panzer, I read about some of the digital tools he is using to try to help him be better at his faith practices. And one of the more intriguing ones that he mentioned was an app called "Presently," which on its website is described as a "A minimal daily gratitude journal." Site app's website describes it as an Adroid app, but maybe it's also available to iPhones. You'd have to check.
The app is refreshingly simply designed and simple to use. Each day the app sends a notification to your phone encouraging you to open the app and write down what you are grateful for that day. That's it! ... You can be as lengthy or as spartan with your words as you want. But the point is to get you to actually write out what you are grateful for. In other words, it makes you be intentional about the effort.
Now, I recognize that this is not a new concept. Actual, physical gratitude journals have been a thing for eons, and there is likely a very long list of gratitude exercises on places like Pinterest that don't involve a phone app.
But what I like about the Presently app is that it's right there in my hand. ... I already utilize my phone a lot for work, for the church and for my writing. And so for me it makes perfect sense to keep the app handy on my phone.
I'm over-simplifying the abilities of the app, of course. It offers you many more features than just being a digital notepad, but if that's all you want it to be, then it works very slick as just that! And for my uses right now, that's enough. ... I'm sure others use more of the bells and whistles.
In principle, what the app developers hope to get you to do is to regularly review your day, consciously think about what made you grateful that day, and then write it down in the app. It's intention is to help you exercise that attitude for gratitude. ... So maybe, you can think about the tool as a digital trainer that's helping you build up your gratitude muscle!
There's a couple of things I like about the app.
First, if you miss a day's gratitude entry, you can go back one day to add your gratitude notes. But not any further! The app doesn't want to make it easy to cheat on the practice. So, for instance, you can't go back at the end of the week and write in a week's worth of gratitudes. The app wants to help you establish a daily attitude for gratitude!
Second, the app is designed so that you can continuously scroll up and down from the day you start using the app until the present day, meaning that you can easily go back days and weeks to see what you were grateful for at any given time. And after using the app for three weeks now, I love being able to look back on any random day to see the things that I was grateful for right in that moment! It helps me to remember many of the smaller blessings in my life I'd otherwise forget!
The app notification is a big key for me! ... Everyday, I receive that notification that I haven't added my day's gratitudes, and it spurs me into action!
There are also very kind little encouragements to help you keep your daily input streak going. For instance in the template design I chose, after my fifth and 10th days of sharing my gratitudes, there was a smiling sunshine that popped into my gratitude string! How fun!
Most importantly: The app is free!
You don't have to use a phone app to keep track of your daily gratitudes, of course. This just works for me in my world where I use a lot of technology. But maybe you still find yourself more of an analog person, and that's OK! ... Find an old notebook lying around your house, or a journaling book that you never used, or chalkboard in your kitchen. Just something to help keep you accountable in your practice!
And, frankly, the tool you use isn't as important as actually being intentionally focused on the practice of gratitude. I've heard varying data about how long you have to use a practice before it becomes an ingrained habit; regardless of what that number is, it's difficult. And we all know it!
But I'm finding that detailing my own gratitudes is becoming infectious! Each day my gratitude list grows longer, it makes me want to find other unique things for which I am grateful that I have listed before. So my practice is beginning to take on a life of its own! And I'm excited to see where I am at with the practice at the end of February, my first full month on the Presently app!
Faith Family, I'd be curious to hear about your gratitude practices. How do you inspire yourself to live out of gratitude? Do you keep track of your gratitudes? And, if so, how do you do it? Do you have a unique way of taking stock of the things for which you are grateful? Please share so that we all can learn from each other!
Oh, and one more thing before I go: Please know that I am grateful for each of you!
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