How exactly do you desire your life to change and improve while staying deeply present and open to your life in the here and now?
Gratitude.
But before you yawn and click away. Give me a moment to share with you exactly how you can apply this mental posture to 3 critical areas of your life.
1. Gratitude for the good already in your life
“What if you woke up today with only the things that you thanked God for yesterday?”
What if you knew you will wake up tomorrow and the only things left in your life are the things you give thanks for today?
Gratitude for the good we have in our lives immediately brings us into the present moment. It is a presence cultivator and the most brilliant one I can think of to help you build your “presence” muscles as you go through your day. But it does more than that.
Focusing on the good right now will bring more good in…so it straddles both your present and your future in the very best of ways. You reap the benefits of all the happiness and fulfillment available to you right now while moving yourself and your life into the growth and goodness of your future.
2. Gratitude for the difficult or lack in your life
It can be hard to generate genuine gratitude {Try saying that out loud! I can hardly say it in my head 
} …for things that feel difficult about our lives.
It can also feel hard to generate gratitude when we feel worn out and lacking. When we feel inadequate and exhausted.
A while back, a friend sent me a link to a sermon from Pearl Church in Oregon. The pastor was remarking on the gospel of Luke, with the loaves of bread and fish that were to feed the multitudes.
The pastor asked us to consider why Jesus asked the disciples, “What do you have?” and then used the little they had to do miraculous things, instead of just doing it all himself.
He went on to say (I’m paraphrasing here):
“When you feel you have no time, take the little time you have, lift it to the God, ask Him to break it, to bless it, and see what He might do with it…
When you feel you have no heart left to give…take the little heart you have, offer it to the Lord to break it, bless it and see what He might do with it…
When you feel you have no money, no talent, no energy, no love or care left…take the little you can muster, offer it to the Lord ask him to break it, to bless it and then see what He might accomplish through it.”
So how do we authentically generate gratitude for the things that feel hard and difficult, for the parts of us that feel lacking?
We lift them up. We ask those areas to be blessed. We believe that there is nothing in our life right now that can not be used for our greatest good. And we give thanks for those things as well.
3. Gratitude for the things you want to come into your life
Finally, how do we give thanks for the things not yet arrived? Isn’t it assumptive- or worse foolish? Aren’t you opening yourself up to feeling disappointed if it doesn’t come through?
Here’s my take.
It comes back to the overly-attached concept. I work to hold my desires and dreams with open hands. I know I can’t out-dream God. I follow the things that light me up, that make me happy, that I dream about and trust this or something better is on it’s way.
I’ve changed my dreams many times along the way- some things just lost their shine for me.
But the fastest way to figure out what a worthy goal is in your life is to take action. You can’t direct a still ship.
You have to be moving and dreaming and figuring out your true desires if you are going to refine them. There has been times in my life I thought I wanted something. I asked, I gave thanks and I was open to receiving. I moved forward toward the goal and in the process something bigger and better and more perfect arrived.
So go nuts- give thanks for all the good you can imagine and then go through your days with open hands ready and expectant to receive that or better!
Which of these 3 critical areas of gratitude do you have the hardest time with? Which is easiest for you?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh my goodness this post is BEAUTIFUL. I’m most inspired by #2 — gratitude in the lacking places, lifting up what you do have to be blessed. It’s just what I needed to hear this morning. THANK YOU for sharing these words.
Thank you, Lisabeth for sharing here!! I love hearing the message came to you at just the right moment
Hi this is a wonderful post, and just what I needed to hear to make it through my challenges right now. I am always wondering how to stay grateful and present when it all gets a bit stormy. I especially like the idea of “raising up and blessing” my challenges and the things I feel lacking.
Thank you for this helpful post.
Kristi
Hi Kristi- thanks for sharing…it was a huge perspective shift for me as well and has made a huge difference.
I very much appreciate and resonate with the second principle. I am currently in the process of separation from my fiance. This process is a mystery and I am in continued awarenss of the opportunity to give thanks to the challenge of this mystery as I cannot see what it has in store. Break it, bless it and receive. Love it!
thank you for this. since reading ann voskamp’s book these thoughts have been swirling around in my head. i find myself wasting precious time wishing and wanting sometimes for things to be different. i find when i start with gratitude my whole way of thinking changes. i’m so much more present in the moment when i’m grateful for right now. i want this for my children, too.
This is a great post and like Beth mentioned, I can only advise to read Ann’s book or follow her blog. So many beautiful posts on there, we have been taking part in the 1000 things to be grateful for on her blog, every month you can download her gratitude list of three things and my son and I have been working with those every night before we go to sleep. It is so enriching. I really want my children to learn to be grateful and to become grateful adults because this is the only way to live a truly happy life in my opinion, with appreciation and reverence for our world and ourselves.
Being thankful for our faults can be challenging, but it is a part of us and we should embrace it and work on it.
You can also find on Ann’s site somewhere an article on how much a grateful list affects children, their grades, their attitude and their outlook on life overall, but as I said this affects not just children but adults alike.
I find being grateful for the struggles in my life particularly difficult. I don’t often view them as positives. I have one situation right now in our family that comes to mind regarding disagreements on where we worship on Sundays. It’s not been fun or happy disagreeing on a topic so close to our hearts. I’ve not viewed it with gratitude at all, in fact we keep just sort of avoiding it. So, considering it through the lens of being thankful helps to reframe it. I am thinking it would also be helpful to consider some of my own personal struggles and limitations with gratitude. I never do that for sure. Maybe it would reframe these parts of my life as well.
Lisa, this was such a great post. I struggle with being grateful for the difficult things in my life but as I read #1 I realized that I don’t often enough make the effort to be grateful for the good things either. If I woke up today with only the things I’d thanked God for yesterday I wouldn’t have had much at all. I take so much of the good stuff for granted each day! Your post was such a good reminder to give thanks in all circumstances and to strive to always have a grateful heart.
This was such a great post!