Choose Gratitude

In this episode, we examine a timely word of encouragement: choose gratitude. When life feels heavy, uncertain, or disappointing, gratitude becomes more than a response, it becomes the place where healing, peace, and rebuilding begin. Drawing from Psalm 103, Isaiah 61, Isaiah 26, and Habakkuk 3, this episode speaks to anyone carrying emotional weight, battling anxiety, or struggling to move forward after a painful experience. Be reminded that your progress can begin again, and it begins from the place of gratitude.

Transcript

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A beautiful morning to you, and welcome to this morning's expression of uniting your day. The word for you this morning is choose gratitude. Choose gratitude. As I was praying this morning, I felt this strongly in my spirit. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. That's from Psalm 103. And let's begin there. Psalm 103 reminds us: bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. This morning, I believe the Lord is speaking a simple but powerful word to you. Choose gratitude. Choose gratitude. I don't know who this is for, but for close to a week now, you have simply been managing yourself. You've been responding because you have to respond. You've been going out because you have to go out. You've been active because you have to be active. But deep within, something happened that tried to steal your joy. Left to you, you would rather stay in bed all day. Left to you, you will rather remain indoors. Left to you, you will rather withdraw because you have seen something that brought real heaviness into your heart. But this morning, the Lord is speaking to you clearly. Choose gratitude. I do not know exactly what that thing is, but the Lord is asking you this morning to choose gratitude. Maybe it is something personal that is trying to keep you moody, sorrowful, or weighed down. Maybe it is connected to the territory where you are right now, and everything around you seems to give you no reason to celebrate. Maybe the word of the Lord to you is what you need to see all things differently. Choose gratitude. Choose gratitude. Yes, something happened. Yes, your experience is real, and no one is denying it or minimizing it. The Bible in Psalm 103 tells us something important about the recalibration of our inner man. He says there, Bless the Lord, O my soul. This is an intentional recalibration of the soul. The psalmist is reminding himself that the very life with which he experienced that pain was given by God in the first place. So again, choose gratitude, my friend. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Not some of what is within me, not a fraction of what is within me, not a percentage of what is within me, all that is within me. And then he says, Forget not all his benefits. He is the one who forgives, he is the one who heals, he is the one who redeems, he is the one who crowns your life with loving kindness and tenderness, he is the one who satisfies your mouth with good things, he is the one who renews your strength. So, the question this morning is this can you for a moment set aside that negative experience? Can you just for a moment bless the Lord? Can you choose gratitude instead of surrendering yourself to heaviness? Go ahead this morning and thank your Father in heaven. Magnify him over that circumstance. Tell him he is great. Tell him he is mighty. Tell him he is good. Because as you engage in intentional gratitude, something happens inside you, something shifts inside you. The spirit of heaviness begins to lift, and the garment of praise begins to come upon you. My brother, my sister, choose gratitude. Going forward begins from here, the repairs begin from here. Continuing that journey begins from here. Everything begins to change from this point of gratitude. There is also someone the Lord wants to help this morning in the area of anxiety. You have made some efforts recently, you started something new in the past few days, but now, day after day, you keep checking what is the result? What is the result? As I prayed, I sensed the Lord saying that he wants to deliver you from that cycle of anxiety. Isaiah chapter 26, verse 3 tells us that the Lord keeps in perfect peace the one whose mind is stayed on him because that person trusts in him. So let me encourage you this morning, take your eyes off the results and put your eyes on the Lord. That is what trust means. Trust means your mind is fixed on him. A humble place to begin may be to pray, Lord, reveal yourself to me in this matter. Help me to see you in what I am doing. I want my mind to rest on you, not merely on outcomes. Show me yourself, Lord, because I want to put my trust in you. Because honestly, if you cannot identify the Lord in that situation, it will be difficult not to fix your mind on the results. The results may feel important to you, but this morning the Lord is reminding you that putting your trust in Him is even more important than the outcome. So, why don't you pray this morning? Oh Lord, let my eyes see you. In every situation and in every circumstance, let my eyes see you. So that as I see you, I put my trust in you. So that as I identify you, I put my trust in you. Friends, that's the answer to anxiety, and from that place you can then say, Lord, I keep my eyes on you, I keep my mind on you, and then declare, I walk in perfect peace, I operate in perfect peace, in the office, perfect peace, at home, perfect peace, in ministry, perfect peace, in business, perfect peace in the name of Jesus. Let's answer a very important question. Why choose gratitude? Why has the Lord asked you and asked me to choose gratitude? Because according to Psalm 103, gratitude is where restoration begins. Yes, gratitude is where restoration begins, that is where the new journey begins, that is where repairs begin. That is where healing begins. That is where rebuilding begins. That is where forward movement begins. And the scripture shows us this clearly in Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61 speaks of healing for the brokenhearted, liberty for the captives, comfort for those who mourn, beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And then it says something powerful. That means your rebuilding is not separate from your response to God. The Lord is saying to you this morning, choose gratitude, because your rebuilding begins from here. The fixing begins here. The raising up of former desolations begin here. The repair of ruined places begins here. And hear these two. What happened to you is not a reason to isolate yourself. Isaiah 61 goes on to show that help will certainly come. There will be people involved in the rebuilding. There will be support in the journey forward. So do not surrender to isolation. Do not let pain push you into withdrawal. Do not let disappointment convince you that you must walk this road alone. The Lord is saying, choose gratitude. Your rebuilding begins here. I spoke earlier about taking your eyes off results and fixing them on the Lord. But someone is saying this morning, what results? I don't even have any results yet. You are saying there is nothing to check, nothing has appeared, nothing has changed. And the Lord brought Habakkuk to my spirit. It says that even if the fig tree does not blossom, even if there is no fruit on the vines, even if the fields yield no fruit, and even if the flocks are cut off, yet my decision remains to rejoice in the Lord and to enjoy in the God of my salvation. That means gratitude is not a response reserved only for visible results. Gratitude is also a posture of faith. It says, I may not understand how I got here, but I know how to proceed from here, and the way forward is gratitude. Friends, it begins here. The rebuilding begins here. The healing begins here. Your restoration begins here. The beauty for ashes begins here. The oil of joy for mourning begins here. The garment of praise begins here. Even if the fig tree has not blossomed, even if there is no fruit yet, even when the labor seems wasted, even when the fields seem barren, even when the flocks appear cut off. Yet choose my brother, choose my sister to rejoice in the Lord. The way forward begins here. So this morning, let this be your declaration. I choose gratitude in the middle of pain. I choose gratitude in the middle of uncertainty. I choose gratitude when results are visible. I choose gratitude when results are not yet visible. I choose gratitude because my rebuilding begins here. The future begins here. Going forward begins here.