God on the Go: Be a Gratitude Leader

This week we’re talking about the importance of gratitude and how complaining effects us. Have you ever noticed how easily negativity can spread? How about we change that by flipping the scenario into being a “gratitude leader,” focusing on the positive aspects of situations, and encouraging others to do the same. How we act can influence others in a positive way, so lets lead with gratitude and positivity!

What’s New!

Monday Story:

• When everyone around you is being cranky, how do you not join the fray. The Grumble Crowd.

Tuesday Key Verse:

• Proverbs 11:25 – “Generous persons will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.”

Wednesday Prayer:

• God, help me be a leader. Help me show how to have gratitude, not just follow the complaint crowd. Remind me when I start to complain that you have given me a lot of blessings, and that it’s better to be a leader than to just go with what everyone else is doing. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Thursday Question:

• What does it mean to you to be a leader?

Friday Fun Fact:

• Q: How many times a day do people complain?
• A: 15-30 times! And when we hear or complain ourselves for 30 minutes, it actually makes our brains shrink a little!

Show Notes:

To get this week’s episode and daily text prompts, text the word Go to 89419.
If you are in Canada, text GodOnTheGo to 866-729-1065

Transcription:

Julie Lyles Carr:

I thought the restaurant was pretty nice, that food was fine. The tables and the way the restaurant was decorated were okay. Sure, it wasn’t some kind of fancy place, but I was happy hanging out with friends and having dinner. But some of those people I was having dinner with, they weren’t too happy with the restaurant at all. They thought it was taking too long to get the food. They thought the waiter wasn’t coming over often enough to check on us. They didn’t like the music that was playing. They didn’t like the tablecloths. And when we got our meals, you guessed it… They complained about the food, that the servings were too small, that they wanted something different. Now, I’d love to tell you that I stood up to these friends and told them that everything was great and to quit focusing on the negative; to quit giving the waiter a hard time.

But here’s the thing, complaining is contagious. That means that when you’re around it, it’s way too easy to also start looking for things to complain about. I found myself wondering if my friends were right. I started looking at things the way they were. Instead of being a gratitude leader in that moment, I was in danger of just being part of the complaining crowd. I’m Julie Lyles Carr, and this is God on the Go, where we help you make the minutes matter. We’ve been talking over the last several episodes about having gratitude; really taking the time to appreciate what God has done for us, for the people in our lives, for the blue sky, for the rain. We’ve talked about looking for gratitude when it can be hard to find something to be thankful for. We’ve talked about remembering to give God our gratitude when things are going good, and also when things aren’t going the way we’d like.

And today we’re going to talk about being a gratitude leader. Let’s face it, it can be really easy to go with the crowd. If your friends are complaining about your new homework assignment or if they’re complaining about the cafeteria food during lunch, or if they’re griping about your history teacher, it can be all too easy to jump in with your own complaints. There are a lot of ways that’s pretty natural. We want to fit in with the group. We want to show our friends that we’re like them. One way we have of doing that is by talking about the things we have in common, that we like, like certain movies or music or hobbies. But another way we sometimes do it is by having things in common that we don’t like. We complain about the same things because it can make us feel a little more connected even when we’re being negative.

The problem with having complaining in common is that it can make us see what’s bad or wrong in any situation. When you practice complaining enough, you can get really good at it. But isn’t it better to actually help people, help them find something good than to just agree with them about what’s bad? The Bible says in Proverbs 11:25,

Generous persons will prosper. Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

Now, when we talk about someone being generous, we usually mean that they share what they have. And we usually think about being generous with our money or our food. But what if we were generous with our gratitude? What if we helped refresh others, which means to help make them feel better, to give them a fresh way of looking at things by pointing out what there is to be grateful for? Check out these two interesting facts about complaining scientists say that most of us complain 50 to 30 times a day. Whoa, and all that complaining. Well, anytime you either hear complaining or you are the one complaining for 30 minutes or more, researchers say that your brain shrinks a little bit. You know what that means? Complaining makes you a little less smart. Yikes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to make myself less smart by complaining or listening to complaining.

That story I told you about being at the restaurant with my friends, I could have done a way better job of saying, well, I’m not really here for the food or service anyway. I’m here to spend time with you and I’m so glad, so grateful that we have this time together. Or I could have said something like, Hey, all I know is anytime I don’t have to be the one cooking or cleaning up the kitchen, I’m grateful. Being a gratitude leader doesn’t mean that you have to make the people who are complaining feel bad. It just means that you start pointing out the things that are awesome in a situation. That you lead others to see with different eyes what’s going on around them. I know you have it in you to be a gratitude leader.

Hey, do me a favor and text the word GO. That’s G-O to 89419, and I’ll send you reminders about our verse this week, fun facts, ways that you can pray, and lots of other great stuff. I’ll see you next time on God, on the Go.