Thanklessness

"A lack of doxology leads to depravity." -Ann Voskamp

If you are anything like me, you are probably thinking to yourself, "what in the world does doxology mean?"

Believe me, I had no idea. So I had to look it up.

Doxology: An expression of praise to God.

An expression. I love that. There are so many facets of expression. We can express our thoughts through words. We can express ourselves through melodies of music. We can express ourselves nonverbally through body gestures and actions. There are so many ways we can express our feelings, thoughts, and attitudes.

But this profound statement is talking about the way we express our praise, essentially, our thankfulness.

I, for one, use to consider myself to be a very thankful person. But, to be honest, with the weight of four years of college, and now working on my first year in grad school, I have grown pretty cold over the years. Not that I think it has shown as much outwardly as it has grown internally. I've noticed myself in situations becoming more pessimistic, easily frustrated, and anger grew within me. It became easy for me to see the negative and It just didn't occur in my thoughts, it overflowed into my conversations.

Let's read this again... "A lack of doxology leads to depravity." Do you feel the weight of that statement? Without thankfulness we become corrupted. Our souls become nasty, icky, and most terrifying, cold and hollow.

I have realized this about myself. I couldn't believe the thoughts I was thinking or the words that were overflowing from my heart that I allowed to float into existence. Then I discovered it.

We all have a choice to chose to be thankful or chose to foster thanklessness. So I decided to start journaling all the many graces that God has given me. I've decided not to just look with my eyes, but to actually see. As I go throughout my day I jot down things that make my heart happy, or things that I have missed because I wasn't really looking. I'll share the five I wrote down today:

1) Having a man who loves me unconditionally
2) Having supportive friends
3) Throw blankets :)
4) To be able to express myself freely with Jesus
5) Thankful that Petey came to counseling with me today

I can't express how freeing it is to see through the lens of thankfulness. Not, to say that crazy things won't happen. Sadness and pain exist. Things will be hard sometimes, but nurturing a lifestyle of thankfulness will help sustain you when the rough times inevitably come.

Take it from me, it's worth it. Join me on this thankfulness journey!! What are you thankful for today?

Little blurb

I realized today...

Everyone unites for football.

No matter where you are, what you are doing, when you see someone wearing your team's colors, you automatically unite.

I'll scream to random people when I see them sporting the orange and blue. I'll become so excited as we exchange our passion and enthusiasm for the gator nation that we are apart of.

What about Jesus? Do I unite with my brothers and sisters and call out to them when I see them representing our team?

Do I share in passion and excitement with them?

Hmm.. I wonder what it would look like if I treated the kingdom of God like a gator football game?

The Gator Nation is amazing, i won't take anything away from that, but why is it so easy to unite together for something that is temporary?

And I'm the biggest sucker for buying into the temporary.

Lets enjoy our teams, but remember the Kingdom of God is really something to join in together about.

Don't believe everything you think.

Irrational thoughts.

We all experience them.

We all suffer from them.

And too often we are mastered by them.

It makes sense. The devil will use anything and everything to gain control over our lives. If he can't master us by external events, why not try to vandalize our internal world?

Irrational thoughts usually surface from a deep rooted core belief that was created earlier in life. Some core beliefs look a lot like this:

"I am unlovable..."
"I will never be good enough..."
"I am unworthy..."
"I am unwanted..."
"I am defective..."

Many times these core beliefs are so deeply rooted that we don't even recognize them. The enemy is so crafty in using our pain and brokenness to instill these thoughts. Soon enough, he deceives us into creating these beliefs that sustain over the course of our lives. "My parents said I was a mistake.... Maybe I really am unwanted." "Some people make fun of me. I know I've always been different, but maybe I am defective." "He broke up with me. That's the fourth guy... What's wrong with me. There has to be something wrong with me."


It's as easy as that. And Satan is so good at it. His desires are to stunt our growth, make us question God's love for us, and ultimately led us into darkness.

How can we stop this madness?

I recently have been dealing and wrestling with this very question. I have so many jacked-up thought patterns that were established due to Satan's lies about my identity.

What can we do? Don't believe everything you think. I have had to stop and ask myself some questions when it comes to my thoughts:

1. Where did this thought come from? (past, people, failures?)
2. Is there even any evidence for this thought to exist? 
3. What does God think about this? What does He think about me?

"This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; new life has begun!" -2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus wants to make us brand new. He wants to renew our thoughts and attitudes (Ephesians 4:23). He wants to give us new core beliefs.

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made." -Psalm 139:14
"I am God's masterpiece." -Ephesians 2:10
"I am loved."-1 John 3:1, Ephesian 2:4-5, Romans 8:37-39
"I belong." -1 Peter 2:9 
 
Just as easily as we buy into Satan's lies, we can choose to listen to God's truth. To be very honest, this is a hard process that takes your time and energy, but produces so much freedom if you are willing to seek truth. Challenge yourself. Really dig deep. Pay attention to your reactions. When something goes wrong, what are your automatic thoughts? Listen to the words that come out of your mouth. What words do you choose to speak into existence? They are reflections of our heart and our thoughts.

God is faithful. He will never leave. His truth will stand firm, we just need to actually believe it.

Let's not be victims of irrational thoughts.

They have no power in the presence of truth.