What do I feel entitled to?
We're backing into a grateful heart this Thanksgiving
It might feel a bit cliche to kick off Thanksgiving week with a look at gratitude, but we’re going to do it in a way that will force us to pause and ask God to join us in this conversation––like we always do. ;) And I’ve got a printable to share around the Thanksgiving table too at the end!
Plus, as cliche as the topic of gratitude can feel, it has an incredible impact on our well-being. So unless you’re already Pollyanna praising the Lord for everything in your life, learning to practice more gratitude can not only be a way we practice obedience to the Lord (because the Bible is clear that we should be thankful in all circumstances) but also experience a world of personal benefits too.
Gratitude has been proven to:
Increase motivation
Lower depression
Lower blood pressure
Slows heart rate
Better sleep
Sharper focus
Less fatigue
Lower levels of inflammation 1
Sign me up for all of that, please! So, let’s get to it. Only instead of simply asking, “What are you grateful for?” Let’s reverse-engineer this thing.
What do I feel entitled to?
Because like John Ortberg say “The bigger the sense of entitlement, the smaller the sense of gratitude.”
It’s hard (maybe impossible?) to come to God with a grateful heart when we feel we inherently deserve all the good things we have. Or worse, that we worked for it, and it’s by our own might! Yikes!