Gratitude – indycrowe

November Thirty-Day Gratitude Reading Plan & Challenge

“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks. Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do.” Tim Keller

“I like to think of thankfulness as God’s ‘spiritual air freshener.’ It replaces the stale odor of resentment with clean, fresh-smelling air for the soul to breathe.” Gary Thomas

Gratitude is a bit like healthy eating. We all want it, and sometimes can do it for a few days, but our bad habits usually shoot us in the foot. Both take more than good intentions. They require replacing old habits with new ones. Good intentions need good habits if we want good results.

November Gratitude Reading Plan: The Psalms

November is always a great time to leverage the national focus on gratitude by leaning into thanksgiving. One way to keep gratitude on your mind and tongue is a reading plan. While The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks has a 30-Day Challenge which includes a reading plan, and you can find a daily devotional for each of those days here, below is another 30-Day Reading Plan. This one is exclusively in the Psalms. Each day, the chapter will includes themes related to gratitude, ingratitude, or thanksgiving. My hope is these psalms can lead you into giving thanks this November.

HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!

It’s hard to believe it, but today marks one year from when The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks was published by Moody Publishers. Thank you to all of you who have read it (or listened to the audiobook). I’ve been greatly encouraged by the interactions, feedback, comments, and conversations. Once a book releases, you know little about who’s reading it and what they might be gleaning from it, so it’s always nice to hear what people learn from it or find helpful in it.

Make 2021 a Year of Gratitude: Cultivating the Habit of Thanksgiving

“When we bless God for mercies, we usually prolong them. When we bless God for miseries, we usually end them. Praise is the honey of life which a devout heart extracts from every bloom of providence and grace.” Charles Spurgeon

Would you characterize 2020 as a year of gratitude or grumbling? Did you notice complaining rising in your heart and slipping off your tongue more than thanksgiving to God?

Thankful for Eternity: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 30)

(This devotional is day twenty-nine of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read Revelation 4:1–11; 7:9–17

Right now, in God’s presence, the heavenly hosts are giving thanks to God. Think about that. As we give thanks, we join the chorus of God’s creatures singing to Him. Revelation (not Revelations) pulls back the curtain between our world and God’s throne so we can glimpse this glorious spectacle. The angels, the beasts (which conjure images of the noble animals in C. S. Lewis’s world of Narnia), and the twenty-four elders offer God praise and thanksgiving.

Daily Gratitude for Daily Grace: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 29)

(This devotional is day twenty-nine of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read Psalm 145

For much of my life, thanksgiving has been a once a year activity. I gave thanks on Thanksgiving Day. I mean, if I do it too often, then Thanksgiving just becomes about turkey and football. Right? Okay, I wouldn’t say that (out loud), but I often live that way by marginalizing thanksgiving. As you’ve read gratitude-related passages from Scripture this month, I hope it’s opened your eyes to the relevancy and power of thanksgiving. It’s for every day and every season. It’s an action (giving thanks) and a disposition (gratitude) for all of life.

Five Ways David Gave Thanks: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 28)

(This devotional is day twenty-eight of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read Psalm 138

Thanksgiving in the Bible is for both the sun-lit mountaintop and the deep, dark valley. Paul calls us to give thanks “in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). We don’t wait until our faith is so strong that thanksgiving bursts at the seams. We practice thanksgiving because it’s part of how we set our eyes on God and cultivate faith in Him. Thanksgiving pushes back against the full-court press from worry, fear, and anxiety.

Resources on Thanksgiving and The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks

With the release of The Grumbler’s Guide to Giving Thanks, I’ve had the chance to write a few articles on thanksgiving and gratitude. For anyone interested, here are a few of those recent resources.

Thanks be to God: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 25)

(This devotional is day twenty-five of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-28, 35-58

After an entire chapter on the resurrection, Paul ends it with two punctuating remarks. The first is that this glorious reality and hope leads to thanksgiving. If anything should lead to giving thanks, it’s reading 1 Corinthians 15. As this song reaches its climax, he thunders out, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).

Thanksgiving and Union with Christ: November Gratitude Reading Plan (Day 24)

(This devotional is day twenty-four of a 30-Day Thanksgiving Challenge. Each day includes a daily reading that will be accompanied by a post on this blog.)

Read Ephesians 1:3-14

When my wife and I married in 2012, we joined our lives together as one. Wedding rings symbolize this unbroken bond of union where I belong to her and she belongs to me. There’s not only the joy of companionship, but there’s also oneness through the covenant of marriage. What’s mine is now hers, and what’s hers is now mine. We not only take on one another’s assets, but we also take on one another’s debts. Her family becomes my family, and my family becomes her family. Even our emotional lives overlap because the things that burden my wife burden me. Spouses share sorrows, successes, and celebrations.

One of the greatest doctrines in the Christian faith is union with Christ. When we trust in Jesus, we’re united with him as one. Our identity becomes wrapped up in who we are in him.