Mr Motivator and....something profound.

Did you see Mr Motivator's number one tip as we endure lockdown. (This effervescent lycra clad keep-fit instructor popular in the 90's has reemerged).  I expected him to advise us about exercise (which he does) but he began like this:

1. Practise gratitude...you've got to focus on the good things in your life. Start every day by just looking around...and thinking of five or six reasons why you should be grateful. They can be simple things like just having a choice...And there are other things we should think about more - you can see, you can hear, you've got someone who loves you. 

Is gratitude the first best thing to show?  Good question. The profound answer is YES.  A devotional book I am currently using called 'A healing house of prayer' begins in the same way: PRAISE.

Whatever you praise the Lord for, that will increasingly become your living experience, because the more we focus on God, the more he meets our needs.  The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10) and so when we praise the Lord, even when we find it a costly sacrifice to do so, we are likely to discover fresh springs welling up within us, refreshing and strengthening us.....

and then something happens and we are brought low and wonder what God is doing.  In that situation we must simply press on and one day we will come out into the brightness again.

Praise changes the direction of our life, reversing the downward pull, dispelling the oppression from the shadow side of us. It changes us at the centre, because our body immune system is put into top gear and all our reactions are made positive. C.S. Lewis must have experienced this disclosure moment because he once said: 'Praise is inner health made audible.'

People who spend time in praising God are indeed a 'planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour.' Isa 61:3.

This gives me a profound challenge with fresh possibilities - perhaps for you too?