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I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that we’re five days into a New Year. This is a good time for you and me to ask ourselves:  What is my personal theme for 2022? What attitude or characteristic do I want God to create in me this year? David prayed, “Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). It’s a good prayer for us in this New Year.

A really good word to focus on all year is thankfulness. If you look at the sacrifices that are a part of the Mosaic law given by God, you’ll discover that there were many sacrifices of thanksgiving. This was a ritual God put in place to remind his people that they were to be thankful people. We’re no longer under the law, but we still need to be reminded to be thankful.

Here are some more practical ways to become a thankful person—to learn to practice thanksgiving.

  1. Do the thankful alphabet. Start with A and go through Z, naming something starting with each letter for which you are thankful. You can have some fun with this; it’s a great game to play in the car with your kids and you’ll be teaching them to practice thankfulness.
  2. Make every Tuesday a “Thankful Tuesday” or each Thursday a “Thankful Thursday.” You can share this with your family or your co-workers and have some fun with it, but it will teach the joy of practicing thankfulness.
  3. Sing songs of thanksgiving. The Bible says to sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. Go for it.
  4. Begin every prayer time with thanksgiving. Psalm 100 tells us to enter the gates of the Lord with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. Whenever you enter into the presence of God, always enter with thanksgiving. Make the first words out of your mouth words of thankfulness.

I have found that this changes my prayer time. If I begin with all my needs and requests, I am self-focused. If I begin with thanksgiving—reciting some of the many things I have to be thankful for—I am God-focused. What a difference that makes in my time spent with God, and that in turn makes a difference in my day.

If you would like “My One Word for 2022” reminder card, click here to download the pdf.