What Are You Looking For

#76

Friend,

I’m sure you’ve noticed that when you get a new car you see that kind of car consistently on the road.

Or if I told you to look for a person wearing a blue shirt, you would be surprised by the number of people wearing that color of shirt.

If I said, “Have you ever wondered how many squirrels you see a day?” Some of you will now be tempted to look for and count squirrels.

Here is a universal truth: We see what we are looking for.

So, my question to you today is, “What are you looking for?”

If you are looking for ways the world has wronged you, how you are not enough, how life is unfair, how people are rude and miserable, then that is what you will find.

However, if you are looking for evidence of God’s beauty, the goodness of loved ones, and how generous people can be, then that is what you will find.

And so today, I want to challenge you to notice and name the good that is around you, and I want you to tell someone what you have seen.

One of the key ways to have hope is to practice gratitude. Gratitude is noticing and naming good. Gratitude does not mean that we don’t acknowledge the messy, the broken, or downright despicable, but it means that we also look for and acknowledge the beautiful, the redeemed, and the downright wonderful.

I love what my 14-year-old son has written as his quote on his Bible App profile, “Every experience you have ever had has brought you to the people and places you love, so if it looks bad now good will come from it.”

Those are the words of a young man who has learned the practice of gratitude, to notice and name good. It’s one of the practices that we have as a family and that he has especially tended to on his own.

Here are two easy practices.

1. Get a gratitude journal. At the end of every day, my son writes down a few things he is grateful for. EVERY DAY.

2. Share gratitude regularly. At dinner time as we are eating together (which of course doesn’t happen every day), we each share 3 Things We Are Grateful For. It’s easy, fun, and a gift for all of us.

So today, what are you grateful for? Where can you name and notice the good that is around us? And how can you start a small practice of gratitude in your life?

Love,

Aaron