May 9: Love Matures: Saying Thanks

1. What are you grateful for?

2. Habit #5: Saying Thanks

Count your blessings every day for the next 30 days in thanksgiving to God.

3. Big Idea:  Gratitude precedes the miracle.

4. Read John 11:5-7, 41-42

5. Read John 6:10-11

6. Read Luke 24:30-32

7. What are you hoping will change in your life?

8. I often focus on something I want God to do for me, and neglect the 10,000 things - often better things - he has already done.  James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God

9. Read Psalm 136:1; 100:4-5

10. Read Ephesians 5:18-20

11. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

12. Neurons that fire together, wire together. 

Our brain is plastic…whatever we do repeatedly tends to become a habit and increasingly easy over time.    Joyful Journey: Listening To Immanuel

13. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment.  Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal

14. Most of us are accustomed to waking up and thinking about our problems each day…Our troubles are real, but they are small compared to God's widespread mercy.  – James Bryan Smith

15. When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done. Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God hath done! Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, And you will keep singing as the days go by. When you look at others with their lands and gold, Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold; Count your many blessings—money cannot buy Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high. So, amid the conflict whether great or small, Do not be discouraged, God is over all; Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end. Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

16. Habit #5: Saying Thanks:  Count your blessings every day for the next 30 days in thanksgiving to God.