I claim that practicing gratitude to the Lord on High has transformed my “fat-loss” journey from years of impotent attempts that resulted in “failure” to releasing 100 pounds and keeping it off for a year (so far). God is the one who deserves all glory and fame, recognition, majesty, power and dominion. Before I discovered the power of this vital key, I gave food more credit, more power, more glory than I did God…
In November 2006 I had to come to a decision…would I have my past have more say and power over my present and future? Or would I let GOD have power and say over my present and future? By fostering a heart of gratitude and praise–slowly at first and now more deliberately–I made and make my choice… You can too!
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Well, reader, do you believe me? 
–That gratitude can transform a life and even put to death besetting sins and habitual unworkable habits in your life? So, how can you and I foster a heart of gratitude? Where do we sign up and what do we have to do?
First, please understand it IS a process. You won’t decide right now that you will have a heart flooded full to overflowing with gratitude and presto, that is all there is to it! I wish it was so simple! So don’t be hard on yourself. The cool thing is, this is a process and God LIKES that you even WANT to experience this…so you have His complete support and help.
That said, one of the best things you can do to foster a heart of gratitude is to simply start noticing things…and magnify them. Things? Like what, you say? Well, like have you ever noticed just how many shades of color there are this time of year? (Any time of year, really…) No matter where you live, the browns and rusts and grays of the desert, the multi-colored hues of the parts of the world where the trees herald fall by changing, the greens down-under as spring explodes on the scene…Wow! God is a master artist! Just noticing things like that and, simply, praising Him specifically for it!
Praising him for your body…the tastes of great foods, the ability to experience the comfort of goose down blankets on a cool morning, the smell of coffee and bacon, the sound of the birds or the wind through the pines outside…or even the cars going by! It is amazing that man is so creative that he could design and build and use and drive a vehicle that has an engine in it! It is astonishing when you start to think about it!
I was challenged in April of 2007 when I stumbled upon an amazing blog. There, I read this challenge. If you read Ann’s entry, you will get a really great taste of how gratitude works. She is extremely eloquent, however. I can’t pretend to even come close to that, so I just read what she posts and absorb it best as I can and then try my own hand at a similar approach. In fact, I took her challenge by choosing to form my own Gratitude Blog. I do some written gratitude journaling in a notebook here at home and haven’t kept my online gratitude blog current. I should get back to that, though!
I found that by browsing around various blogs of others who were fostering a heart of gratitude, I could be taught how to do this. Try it! Click here to see a page of the “Gratitude Community.” Be blessed and drink it in. Some folks are so gifted at giving gratitude. Others of us must learn…but we can be taught. The Lord loves that we want to learn!
So here it is! A challenge to YOU. 
Try it! Either keep a gratitude journal and try writing three things (or however many God may lead you to) daily…maybe at the close of the day. Or create an online gratitude blog. Then share the link here in the comments. I would love to visit your gratitude blog. It is amazing how God will actually tutor His children in giving him the glory that is due him.
In Richard Foster’s book on prayer, he encourages the reader to NOTICE. In fact, in one part of the book he says the following:
“Try to live one entire day in utter thanksgiving. Balance every complaint with ten gratitudes, every criticism with ten compliments. When we practice gratitude, a time will come when we find ourselves saying, not ‘Please,’ but ‘thank you.'”
What would happen if you were to commit to living one entire day taking captive any thought that wasn’t a thought of thanksgiving…and to choose to give thanks for anything and everything? What if you were to choose to NOTICE even the subtle hints of His presence and praise Him? What if you were to offset each complaint with 10 praises, thanksgivings, gratitude statements?
Let’s use our magnifiers to magnify God and His gifts. Let’s focus on these things…NOT on the things that we want and can’t or don’t have…Let’s be sons of Korah, rather than Korah!
