I’ll confess, I can tend to be a half full. You know the type, the skeptic, the realist, you know negative. God has been walking me through a process of renewing my mind. Here’s what He’s been teaching me. For several years now, I can’t get off Romans 12:2, Phil 4:8, and Ephesians 2:6. Joyce Meyer’s says, “You never fail God’s tests, you just keep taking them over and over until you get it right.”
Is it just me, or sometimes does life stink? You think things will work out one way and everything seems to turn out just the opposite of what you’re believing for? You were believing for the sweet life, and you got lemons.
So, when life throws you a lemon, how do you reboot your mind to get it lined up with the Word?
How do you make lemons into lemonade?
You add sugar.
Gratitude is like adding sugar to lemon juice.
It makes sour things sweet.
Studies show that being grateful and giving thanks effects every area of your life. It effects your physical, mental, and emotional health.
Here’s how gratitude reboots your thinking:
1. It honors God – the word actually commands us to give thanks to Him, Psalm 100, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise.” In 1 Samuel 2:30 – God says, “I will honor those who honor me.”
2. It renews your thinking by changing your focus from what you don’t have to what you do have.
3. It’s God’s antidepressant – you can only have 1 thought at a time, you can’t think a grateful thought and a depressed thought at same time. It is impossible!
3 Ways to Increase Your Gratitude
- Start a gratitude journal – write down all those things your grateful for and read and add to it during your devotional time.
- Get a gratitude accountability friend – Someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth.
- Hang around grateful people.
Even when gratitude doesn’t change your circumstances, it changes your perspective – from the lens that is limited by your circumstance, to the unlimited lens of God’s perspective.
S. Courtney Lawson
Writer and speaker Sandy Lawson recently hit two Amazon.com best-seller lists with the new business book, "Transform," co-authored with best-selling author and speaker Brian Tracy.
Sandy Lawson serves as a Care Pastor at Element Church, in Wentzville Missouri, one of the fastest growing churches America. Sandy recently joined noted business development expert, best-selling author and speaker, Brian Tracy, along with a select group of the world's leading experts, to co-author the book titled, Transform: The World's Leading Entrepreneurs and Professionals Get to the Heart and Soul of Transforming your Life, Business & Health. The book was released on September 18, 2014 by CelebrityPress™ - a leading business book publisher.
On the day of release, Transform reached best-seller status in two Amazon.com categories - reaching as high as #6 in the "Direct Marketing" category. The book also reached best-seller status in the "Marketing and Small Business" category. Sandy contributed a chapter titled, "The Relationship Transformation...Taking Relationships From Terminal to Transformed."
Sandy Lawson has over 30 years of experience partnering with her husband, Kip, in family ministry and outreach. She's had the privilege of serving on staff at three mega churches prior to Element Church. In addition, she and her husband also had the honor of building the bus ministry of the Oneighty Youth Group at Church on the Move in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 400 riders weekly to nearly 1,500 riders each week.
Her biggest joy is coaching people in their personal relationships and helping them reach their God-given potential. She and her husband have helped hundreds of couples turn failing marriages into happily-ever-afters, as well as assisting parents in their quest to create healthy thriving families. In their career, Sandy and her husband have been a major influence in the lives of thousands of children, teens, and adults around the world. Sandy is the mother of three, and the grandmother of eight wonderful grandkids. She and her husband have been married over 46 years.
She is the author of a parenting book, "Parenting Through the Mirror" which explores the concept that great parenting must begin with personal transformation. She is also the author and illustrator of a children's geology book, "Iggy and the Volcano" that teaches kids the cycle of igneous rocks. Sandy is a freelance writer, speaker, blogger and was a major contributor to an internationally distributed children's curriculum.
After such a successful release, Sandy Lawson will once again be recognized by The National Academy of Best-Selling Authors™, an organization that honors authors from many of the leading independent best-seller lists.
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