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How to Make a Gratitude List – a Simple Guide

How to Make a Gratitude List – a Simple Guide

People often say we should be grateful. Of course, we agree. But where do we begin? In today’s blog ~ How to Make a Gratitude List – a Simple and Complete Guide ~ you will learn how to make a gratitude list. Before we consider how though, we need to think through a few reasons why it is important to make one.

Throughout this blog, a gratitude list refers to a list of events, items, or people for which you are grateful.

Why Gratitude Lists Are Important

Benefits the spiritual growth process

As we discussed in an earlier blog, gratitude is a key indicator of your spiritual health. As you walk in the Spirit and obey the will of God, gratitude flows out of your heart. The Bible emphasizes in everything to give thanks.

Helps your mind to focus

Maintaining a regular gratitude list helps keep your mind focused throughout the day. The regular practice of writing down a certain number of things for which you are thankful helps keep your mind focused on those things throughout your day. In this sense, gratitude is like a muscle that you regularly exercise. As you do, you begin to use your gratitude muscle more often because you become much more aware of those things and ways that you can be grateful.

Enhances your discipline of self-counsel

As part of our daily disciplines of striving to walk with the Lord, gratitude lists help enhance self-counsel. In self-counsel, the follower of Christ takes the Word of God and focuses it on areas of needed growth, encouragement, or change. A gratitude list in this use helps you focus on what rules your heart in a particular moment or season of time. As discussed in an earlier blog, it is easy to move past contentment to discontentment.

Helps move you past being problem-focused and man-centered to gratitude-focused and God-centered

For most people, it is normal to be anxious or worry about their problems. As our minds drift toward our problems and difficulties, we can easily become a problem-focused person and become man-centered in our approach to people and problems. By this I mean that we forget God’s sovereignty, providential protection, and His desire for glory in the midst of our daily living. The gratitude list helps us focus those things together. We begin to see God’s purpose in life through circumstances better as we focus on the things for which we are grateful.

Helps change your feelings and emotions

Your feelings and emotions represent your interpretation of the circumstances in your life. As you are in a particular situation or circumstance, you think about it, desire something in the midst of it, and love something in the midst of it. Simply stated, you think, desire, and love. Together, I refer to these three inner man responses as your interpreting the situation. From this interpretation you respond with additional thinking, greater affections, and emotions/feelings, as well as words and actions. The gratitude list influences the way you think and you desire. From this influence, your interpretation of your circumstance changes, and with that, your feelings and emotions change.

How to Make a Gratitude List

In order to better understand making and maintaining a gratitude list, let us consider it in two ways: 1) What makes for a good discipline, and 2) What should be in it.

How to Make a Gratitude List a Good Life-Impacting Discipline

 

What Should Be In Your Gratitude List

 


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