I listened to a really good podcast today by Heather Thompson Day, associate professor of Communication at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. The topic was what happens to worship when we start with gratitude? (I guess I am not the only one working through this issue!) I had to stop though right at the beginning of the podcast when she said that research has shown that gratitude and stress cannot live in the brain at the same time. I already knew that gratitude is the cure for anxiety (see Phil. 4:6-7) but I guess I never put it together that anxiety and stress are the same thing. 

Mind blown!

We talked about gratitude last week, and I have been working on incorporating into my everyday life for years. But I admit, sometimes I am so desperate for God’s help with something – for His healing for me or for someone I love – for His rescue out of a bad situation for a family member – that I rush through the praise to get to the petition. The core question of the podcast was this: Am I spending as much time thanking God and praising Him during my prayer time as I am asking Him for something? That really convicts me. Remember when Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray? The whole first half of His prayer was worship and praise and thanksgiving! He didn’t get to His first petition until the prayer was half over. Do I do that? Or do I get right to the “please give me this or that…?” 

So, if the model for talking to my heavenly Father is to spend time thanking and praising and worshiping Him first, and then pouring out my needs, He must really want to receive gratitude from me. It’s not that He is self-serving, or that He needs to hear me say “Thank You” to feel appreciated and loved. God doesn’t need me at all, and He does not suffer from insecurity. However, it is gratitude that puts my heart in the right attitude for sincere worship, and authentic worship releases the Spirit of God to move and work in and through me, the worshiper. And if practicing gratitude also reduces stress in my life, that is even more reason to make sure I am constantly looking for opportunities to say “Thank You” to my heavenly Father.

Heather said it very succinctly – “Never stop looking for spaces in your life to praise God.”

See you on Sunday!

Careen

April 28 Song List:

This Is Amazing Grace – Phil Wickham

 https://youtu.be/rjXjkbODrro?si=AA7tVi7FJTiXQgUq

Lord I Need You – Matt Maher – https://youtu.be/LuvfMDhTyMA?si=jiwqAzJt9kX0b7Ag

It Is Well with My Soul – Gaither Gathering 

https://youtu.be/0nJ6wQpLmuo?si=pBZfYASRjC6bLCJb

Great Is Thy Faithfulness – Maranatha! Music

 https://youtu.be/ErwiBz1QA4o?si=Dqc3RS7zboXrIFgi