Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Did you know that gratitude and being thankful can actually improve your immune system? I want to go over the benefits of being grateful today. The power of being thankful, the discipline of shifting our minds.
[00:00:14] It's actually the feeling of gratitude actually is what brings on healthy benefits. We're going to go over a quick list of healthy benefits put out by Mayo Clinic a couple years ago. Go. Brian Phillips here with you today. If you're listening to us on our podcast, welcome to the podcast. Please share our podcast.
[00:00:32] We'd like to get more and more people into it. You can go to our app. Search Grace Ops on your app store, check us out and grab some devotionals on our website. We'd love to help. They're powerful little tools you won't understand until you just order a little pack of them and help support us. It'd be awesome to spread the message that God has been building through Grace Ops and impacting the lives of men literally all across this country. Okay, well, hey, looking at the benefits of being thankful, I want to talk about just our feelings and our emotions for a moment. I mean, the world's in chaos. It's easy to be overcome with depression and anxiety. And then if you deal with depression and anxiety, if that's a bigger struggle in your life, the pressure that's in the world today can actually magnify that.
[00:01:21] We're coming up on Thanksgiving Day. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. You're probably listening to this on Thanksgiving Day, but man, sit around and I hope. I like to watch football. I like to have turkey. I like it when the table is full. It's got a lot of food on it and everybody's around. And I love the stories that we share. I love the giddiness that we get into the silliness sometimes, and I love hearing the laughter. I like going around and blessing the name of the Lord before we get started eating. I like blessing the name of God. I love getting our minds off of ourselves and into community, into a table full of family and life. So we'll experience that tomorrow. And no matter where you are, I want you to think about this feeling thing, right? Like the feeling of depression, the feeling of anxiety.
[00:02:14] In this report, it actually says that it can help you with chronic pain.
[00:02:19] One of the benefits think about this, the benefit of shifting your mind into a mode. Think about it as a mode, right? Like Corvettes. A lot of cars nowadays, you can put them in different modes. I mean, we can put our phones in different modes, like do not disturb or personal time. Think about that in your own heart, in your own internal wiring. If you were to change your mode into a mode of thankfulness, it's a discipline. It is literally setting your mind on something that you want to be thankful for and taking time to enjoy the feeling that comes from being thankful and grateful. So that's why I call it a discipline. I don't know that it comes naturally. We live in a world that's highly competitive. We live in a world that's highly we have algorithms that fight against us, from our image to our popularity. All kinds of things come against us all the time. And that's just to name some simple ones. Look at this list thankfulness.
[00:03:18] The report actually says the feeling of thankfulness. I want to highlight that. The feeling of being thankful actually can improve your sleep. It can improve your mood. I mean, think about that being thankful. So make a list of two or three things.
[00:03:37] Something I read a long time ago. I don't know how true it is. I think it's true. I mean, it said a good Jew back in the ancient first world would try to practice being thankful for 100 different things per day. I tried that a few times and that was kind of exhausting. So I was like, I'll try three a day and then I don't even do that every single day. But I do practice thankfulness quite often.
[00:04:00] So the feeling of thankfulness can improve your sleep, can make your sleep quality better. I mean, it's kind of funny, I think, of the ad about the beds that move and they shift and they heat you and they cool you and they're trying to increase the stats of your sleep. Well, just imagine adding to that stat by being thankful. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to buy anybody's marketing or buy their bed.
[00:04:25] It improves your mood if you're struggling and you're angry or you're depressed. I mean, shifting your mind to be thankful is a very these are health benefits. It improves your immunity and your immune system to stay healthy actually improves when you practice. I love the word. I'm going to keep hitting it, the feeling of being thankful. So you've got to actually get your mind into a place where you're thankful. So, Lord, I'm thankful for the air I breathe. I have shelter over my head. I have food in my stomach. I'm thankful God. I mean, even if your life was super terrible and maybe you're at the bottom right now, maybe you're listening to this and you're at the bottom, it's a discipline. Find those things that you can be thankful for. Practice gratitude.
[00:05:12] It goes on and says that this feeling of thankfulness decreases depression, anxiety, and difficulties with chronic pain.
[00:05:21] It even helps us with the risk of disease. I mean, these are some powerful benefits here. I want to shift real quick and close off with this. Psalm 100 says, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. I mean, this is a list of things you can be thankful for. As a man after God, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name. For the Lord is good.
[00:05:59] His steadfast love endures forever. There's two things right there you can be thankful for god, you're good. And I think that your love endures forever, even Your love for me and his faithfulness to all generations. The Scripture says that when we're faithless, we're the covenant breakers and God's the covenant keeper. And so when we are faithless, he remains faithful. So that's just five verses of Psalm 100. And what I love about it is the discipline of gratitude is that it shifts my mind off of myself, off of the internal, the depression, the anxiety, whatever I may be feeling at that time. And it actually helps me shift my mind on something else other than me.
[00:06:37] That discipline right there is important. We've got to kind of get our minds off ourselves onto the Father and then bless his name. I love that it says, enter his courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks to him. Father, I thank you for this. I thank you for my family. I thank you for you could be going through a hard time. Thank you for the pain, the purpose that this pain is producing in my life, Father, and it says, bless His I just that's how I practice it. As a man after God, as a believer. I'm thankful for Christ. I'm thankful for his cross, his death, his resurrection. I'm thankful for God who comes down and creates this world that we live in, creates all humanity. I'm just thankful for the assignment on my life. I'm thankful for the car, the truck I get to drive. I'm thankful for the technology I get to use, right? I mean, there's so many things I'm thankful for good friends that I have, the team that I have. There's a lot of things to be thankful for.
[00:07:31] So I want to encourage you today to make gratitude. Practicing gratitude a consistent weapon of warfare is kind of the way I look at it, right? I look at it like if I'm bummed out, right? Sometimes we all get like that. We get stuck in ourselves and we get trapped in our own emotions. Our anxiety is hitting us. Practice shifting your mind.
[00:07:53] Get out of it, right? Shift the gears and put yourself into a mode of thankfulness, into a mode of blessing the name of God and watch what happens. Just do it with one or two things. Lord, I'm thankful for your steadfast love. You could just start there. God. Thank you that you love me. Thank you that you're faithful. Even when I'm faithless. And then you can just go on and on. Thankful for just begin to name the list and don't just go through the list, like checking the list off. Go through the list until you feel the power of what that thankfulness is producing in your emotions, because that's what releases all these benefits. Improving your sleep, your immunity, improving your mood, decreasing depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain. There you go.
[00:08:37] Well, it is Thanksgiving season, so happy Thanksgiving. But we're not just producing this so we can do it once a year. I want you to engage the power of discipline, the discipline of gratitude as many times as you can in a week. Try to do at least once a day is a very powerful way to live. It's a great goal to practice gratitude on a daily basis. All right, well, God bless you, and until next time, live upright.
