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Being thankful is not our natural condition. We have to choose to be thankful and we have to remember to be thankful and we have to work at being thankful.
Many times, I have gone to Africa to conduct meetings there, and every year as I returned home, I was reminded of how much I have and how easy my life is compared to my friends in Africa. I would tell myself that I would never complain about anything again, but you know, after a few weeks if I wasn’t careful, I would fall back into my bad habits of complaining. If I want to be a truly thankful person—and I do—then I have to put disciplines in my life that will cause me to give thanks for everything and in everything.
Here’s one suggestion that helps me to be a thankful person: Turn every complaint into a praise. When you start to complain about something, even if that complaint has already escaped your lips and you’ve just heard yourself utter those negative words, go back and replace them with words of thanksgiving. For example,
- You complained about the weather—it’s raining again, and you’ve had three days of rain, and you’re tired of the rain.
- As soon as you hear those words of complaint, replace them with thankful words: You know, this rain is good. I’m thinking of some places in Africa that are in a three-year drought. They would love to have this rain. Thank you, Lord, for this rain.
Whether your complaint is just a thought in your mind or words you’ve expressed out loud, you need to replace those complaining words with words of thanksgiving. Of course, it’s better if you can catch yourself before you think or say those negative words, but even if you have already said them, I encourage you to teach yourself to replace them with thankfulness.
You see, the power of thanksgiving is something we have to teach ourselves; it’s a gift we give ourselves, and we do this by becoming aware of every non-thankful thing we think and say and forcing ourselves to replace them with thankfulness. And the more you do that, the more it becomes a good habit which you just naturally do.