The “Thankful Jar” Challenge (Update)

On January 6th, I wrote about the importance of being thankful for what God has done in your life.  I encouraged you to decorate a jar and write down what you are thankful for each week.  Below is the blog I wrote on January 6th:

“We have so much to be thankful for in life.  So many times we only look at the negative instead of the positive.  We complain rather than be thankful for the life we have.  I know I am guilty of this mindset.  I can think of more negative things than positive that has happened in my life.  It is harder to stop and think about the good when life is chaotic and unfair.

BUT here is a challenge for you to change your thoughts to be positive and see the good in your life!  Get a jar and decorate it as you please and call it your ‘thankful jar’.  Each week write something you are thankful for and date it.  Put the piece of paper in the jar.  At the end of the year, read everything you were thankful for this year.

I encourage you to do this challenge with a friend, spouse, or co-worker.  This will help you be accountable to continue to be thankful each week.  If you feel comfortable, swap your “thankful jar” with the person who is doing the challenge with you and read each other’s encouragements.

Year 2016 focus on the positive in your life rather than the negative!  I encourage you to remember how good God is even when life is not going your way.”

Today, I will be giving you an update on how one simple task changed my perspective.  It has been three months since I have started the “thankful jar,” and I can see change happening in my life.  I have been writing about being thankful for struggle, friends, church, family, job, and the simplest of things.  Some weeks were easy to write down what I was thankful for.  Other weeks I have struggled writing down positive thoughts, because I had a difficult week.  The “thankful jar” challenged me to write down something positive when my mindsets were negative.  It made me think of one thing that was good out of all the bad that may have happened that week.

The Bible tells us in our weakness we are strong through Christ. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says God’s “grace is sufficient for you, for [His] power is made perfect in weakness.  Romans 5:3-5 reminds us to “rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  We are to rejoice in our suffering as we trust God to make us stronger through our circumstances.

The “thankful jar” challenges you to think differently.  It makes you think positive when everything around you is negative.  There has been 16 weeks out of the year to write down a weekly positive thought.  I have written down 32 thankful statements since I have started this challenge.  I average at two written statements a week to put in the jar.  I encourage you if you have not started a “thankful jar”, you should because it changes your perspective to a more positive outlook on life.

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