I feel like God works on me in specific seasons and cycles. Last year, I would’ve called the the year of prayer. My prayer life increased and I have made a more concerted effort to be mindful of God throughout the day as well as spending some more concerted effort at a prayer time each morning.
So when this new year rolled around, I wondered what God might be pressing me to take on in this new year. Through a variety of things I am studying and reading as well as through some c0nviction, I am realizing that this needs to be a year of gratitude and thanks. This builds on my previous year of prayer and is more of a new focus for my prayer life.
To my shame, I am not a particularly thankful and grateful person. Exacting person? Check. Complaining person? Check. Even person-quick-to-ask-God-for-stuff? Check.
But I am convinced that God desires gratitude from me. And I am designed for the purpose of gratitude. Every breath I have ever taken, has been composed of His air. Every meal I have taken has come from his soil. Every molecule composing my body has been crafted by his design and has its being by His divine word.
I want to be a more grateful ad thankful person. And something tells me that the pathway forward begins with rehearsing the good things God has done and the following that up with actually telling Him “thanks!”
My hope is that gratitude comes more naturally by this time next year. But it will not happen accidentally. It will come through taking every thought captive, and arresting my thoughts from the negative to the positive. If God works thankfulness into my life, I believe it will be a blessing to me and to everyone else around me.