How to practice gratitude as a Christian women? I believe we are called to practice gratitude. First, we should be grateful to Jesus for our salvation and God for giving us life.
But if you are like me, there have been times when it’s been a struggle.
From 20 years in Christian missions to moving back to my home state of Texas, life has been a roller coaster for sure. Yet, one thing in my life I’ve tried to maintain is cultivating thankfulness. I’ll be honest: I have always been a “the sun is always shining” type of person.
Until I started to work in anti-human trafficking, and it changed my entire worldview as a Christian woman.
The stories of what happened to victims and trying to help children in a broken system brought a new reality to my world.
At this point, practicing gratitude became something I needed to do for my well-being. But it was a struggle, and I had to practice gratitude to help me shift my focus onto what God was doing and the blessings I had.
Thinking about what others have done for you can help you be more grateful. It also shifts our thoughts onto good things that are happening. So here are the tips I use to practice gratitude and help me focus on being thankful.
How to practice gratitude as a Christian woman starts with the basics.
Thank others.
Reach out to people for whom you are grateful.
Text, call, or send a thank you note. Not only will it help you practice gratitude, but it will also bring you closer to others.
Next, on how to practice gratitude as a Christian woman, in an era of self-care (which is important), it can be easy to let the focus of our thoughts and lives be ourselves and our emotions. Which can be dangerous if we souly focus on ourselves and our own feelings.
So the next is,
Focus on God
Let your focus in tough times or challenging days be on what God can do, not what you can’t.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.”
Look to all the challenging circumstances as opportunities to see what God will do. You might be thinking, I don’t understand what you are going through. Caring for a medically fragile family member, cancer, abusive relationships, demanding employer, financial difficulties. I have lived through all of this situation in the past few years.
Life can be challenging.
Through all of these challing times, I know when I was able to put God before the problem my emotional state was a lotbetter.
Take time to thank God.
As I mentioned above, the last few years have been filled with challenges and, honestly, disappointments in some ways.But taking time to thank God shifted my thinking and helped me practice gratitude.
It doesn’t take a lot of time, but in the morning, I like to thank God for the day and put on an upbeat worship song.
The next tip on how to practice gratitude as a Christian woman is something I have tried to do all my life when I get in a negative mindset.
Practice the 1 for 10 rule.
I know you’re probably thinking about what the one-for-ten rule is? For every one negative thing you say, you need to say ten positive things. But if you’re using it to practice gratitude, then you say 10 things you are thankful for to every negative.
This is how I started practicing the 1 for 10. I had a roommate in college who was incredibly negative; for 18 year old, she was like a grumpy old man. But she wanted to change, so we started practicing this together.
In a few weeks’ time, she changed. Since then, I have also started to do this whenever I think I am getting too focused on the negative.
This leads me to the next way to practice gratitude.
Focus on the positive.
If you want to practice gratitude as a Christian woman, seeing what is going right will help you.
In practicing gratitude and focusing on the positive, there are some health benefits: better sleep, strengthened immune system, and lower blood pressure. This article talks about the 35 scientific benefits of Gratitude from Research.
If you want to practice gratitude, then one of the most important things you can do as a Christian is,
Give Forgiveness
And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.
The best way to have a grateful heart is to have a forgiving one. If you really want to be more positive, start with forgiveness.
When you want to practice gratitude and have a thankful attitude, then you need to forgive and accept forgiveness.
How to have a grateful heart also starts with a redue, which is,
Rewire negative thoughts.
Sometimes, we all get into a rut, which can cause negative thoughts to swirl around in our minds. These thoughts can steal away things we used to be grateful for or even make us blind to the blessings in our lives.
It does help to practice the 1 to 10 rule, which my roommate and I started using in college to rewire negative thought patterns into grateful and thankful thoughts.
Stop the lies from holding you back.
But sometimes, the thoughts that need to be rewired are the things we believe about ourselves—lies like, “I am not good enough,” “nothing good will happen,” or “I am stupid, ugly, fat,” or whatever it is that you may be thinking about yourself that is negative.
All lies we believe about ourselves do is hold us back in life. They are like captors that keep us from the peace that God has for us. Don’t let those captors hold you hostage any longer. Change.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
A Christian neuroscientis Dr. Carolina Leaf’s wrote the book “Switch on your Brain”. It walks people through rewiring thoughts that are negative. (The above is an affliate link. I will get a small commission if you buy the book at no cost to you.)
The next in how to practice gratitude as a Christian woman,
Daily write what you are gratiful for.
Just the act of writing what you are grateful for can bring change. I have done this every day and for years. It’s helped me to remember the amazing things God has done in my life.
It’s also a really good way to see the things
I am on a mission to inspire woman to do this daily. It’s so important for practicing gratitude.
Read the Bible
The benefits of reading the Bible are so vast, from 57% decrease in alcoholize to anger issues dropping by 32%. This article from Lifeway shares about the benefits.
For me personally reading the Bible daily always helps my focus to be in the right place. Instead of all the issues and problems I might be facing I remember the scripture I read that morning.
I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.
One of the last ways on how to practice gratitude as a Christian woman is,
Always something to be grateful for.
It’s easy to get lost in the circumstances that we face in life. But being grateful is a choice. If you have a choice to be grateful or ungrateful, I think it’s pretty clear the best option.
Like I mentioned above life gives us many challenges and sometimes they come in the same week but, choosing gratitude will always bring more peace than the negative.
So as you walk through your daily life remember that choosing gratitude can bring change into your life and no matter where you are or what your circumstances you can practice gratitude.
Quick recap of practicing gratitude.
- Say thank you to others.
- Focus on God.
- Take time to thank God.
- Practice the 1 for 10 rule.
- Focus on the positive.
- Practice forgiveness
- Rewire negative thoughts
- Daily, write what you are grateful for.
- Read scripture
- Remember, there is something to be thankful about.
In conclusion practicing gratitude is a choice and no matter what is going on in your life you can be grateful. If you liked this post please share it on Pinterest or social media.
Here are some related articles to help you grow in faith and live a life in missions.
How to pick the right mission trip
How to deepen your faith as you travel