My Gratitude Challenge
ByHave you noticed that the older you get, the bigger the challenges seem to be?
Whether it’s your own health or the health of a loved one, an estranged family member, children who are struggling (seems like so many young people are struggling these days), financial woes, societal issues—all seem to hit harder as we age. (Or is it just me?)
And sometimes everything seems to crash down at once.If you find yourself struggling to keep your head above the waters of adversity, you might try something I’ve been doing that has empowered me.
Photo by Alex Padurariu
There are two aspects to this.
The first is to realize the “50/50 of life”: that on average, life is 50% good and 50% bad or unpleasant.
Now, sometimes we’re in a place where it’s 25% good, 75% “bad,” and we need to acknowledge that. I have learned the hard way that refusing to acknowledge the “sucky” parts of life only pushes the negative feelings down, where they could end up manifesting in some kind of bodily symptom.
Even so, acknowledging that life is both “good” and “bad” or difficult, will keep you grounded.
Then, the challenge becomes to consciously look for good, the joyful, the beautiful, the noble, the hopeful. As Paul the Apostle wrote (from prison, mind you), whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).
Photo by Erwan Hesry
Celebrate whatever you can.
No doubt you’ve heard all this before (but reminders don’t hurt). The thing I’m adding, my “gratitude challenge,” is to ask of the things that don’t go my way, “How can this be good?”
Since I believe the promise of Romans 8:28, that God works all things together for good to those who love him and are called to his purpose, I trust that God can bring something good out of anything.
Some people believe that God deliberately brings hard things in their lives to “teach them something.” To me, that lines up more with the feeling of a punitive parent rather than the compassionate God I have come to know.
So what I believe is this: That this world is not yet as it should be (see Genesis 3), but God is busy turning that around.
“Behold, I am making all things new” Jesus promises in the last book of the Bible. It’s one of my favorite verses. I think of this work as the current job description of the Holy Spirit.
I’ve seen it in so many instances in my life, and I’m sure you can too, if you look: times when God turned something “bad” into something good in some way.
Not just always to “teach us a lesson,” but to bring us somehow more into the kind of person who reflects his qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
When I ask, “How can this be good?” my imagination is engaged as I think of possible ways something good can come out of a bad situation. And I remind myself that God is infinitely more creative than me; he can think up—and execute—many more positive possibilities than I can.
Imagining possible good outcomes shifts your brain and your energy from fear, anxiety, anger, etc., to curiosity, which is a higher vibration. Who knows, could this make it easier, so to speak, for God to actually bring something good out of the situation? Could it make us more receptive to what God wants to do in our life? I wonder . . .
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson
Another “higher vibration” switch is to allow yourself to feel gratitude, and actively thank God for either something else that is good in your life, or the fact that he can bring good out of this bad situation.
Keeping a gifts journal has proved a tremendous help with all this. Not only does it enable me to refocus on the positive things in my life, but it provides a written record of how God did the second thing—turn “bad” into something good—which bolsters my faith.
Perhaps this Thanksgiving, whether you celebrate it or not, you can start, restart, or gladly continue the practice of keeping a gifts journal and exercising your imagination to think of possible ultimately good outcomes to the challenges you face.
As you do, you will be practicing that “both/and” thinking that I talked about last week, that fosters resilience: “this unpleasant thing is both difficult, and I am grateful that __________.”
Fill in the blank with the pleasant aspects of your life, and/or the possibilities of good that you envision.
See if that can help you find a ray of joy even in the darkest of times. It does for me.
Photo by Clark Wilson
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