Thanks changes everything

Twenty-sixteen feels like my best year ever.

I haven’t been my best this year. I made some big mistakes. I was a sinner or a slob over a few stretches.

My dad got cancer. Bad cancer. So did my friend, Mary, who is healthful, young, and raising two children in grade school.

My business will not make a profit this year.

I’m struggling (and failing) as much as ever to figure out how to be the husband my wife wants me to be.

We’re still in debt up to our eyeballs and we still own a second home in a bad neighborhood that is $25,000 under water.

I had to live through the 2016 presidential campaign.

How can I say 2016 feels like the best year ever?

It’s this daily discipline (started on January 1) that made all the difference: Each morning, I write down blessings and gifts for which I am thankful. The list has to fill an entire page of my journal before I can move on to the next thing.

Yes, I have problems. Yes, I have worries.

But after almost a year of giving thanks as a daily discipline, I know two things:

1. I am blessed, cared for, and rich a hundred–a thousand–times beyond my shortcomings and troubles.

2. All this goodness comes to me as grace through the love of God. I don’t earn it; it comes to me and will keep coming to me because God loves me.

This daily discipline of giving thanks transformed what I could say was one of my worst years into one that feels like my best. Indeed, it was my best.

Do you need a change of attitude? Do you need confidence? Courage?

Do you need joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

The key that unlocks these things is simple and within your grasp. It is simply giving thanks.

Make today, Thanksgiving Day, the day you start forming the daily habit of giving thanks first thing every morning. It will change your life.

Thank you for going on the faith journey with me, friend.

May God bless and keep you. May God brighten and warm your life. May God give you faith to see how gracious he is to you always and without fail. On this Thanksgiving Day and on all the days to come.