Winning Ways: Thankful People Are Healthier People

“If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep.”


That's the advice of Dr. Robert Emmons in his book Thanks! It's an account of his work in the developing field of psychology called "gratitude research."

Emmons and his colleague Michael McCullough decided to test whether an attitude of gratitude had any real consequence on someone's life. They asked participants to respond to a weekly questionnaire where they self-reported their sense of well-being, physical health, and level of exercise. But before the weekly report, some participants were told to list five things they were grateful for, some were told to list five annoying things from the past week, and some were asked simply to simply write down five "events or circumstances" from the past week.

After ten weeks, the researchers found that the group that was regularly told to express their gratitude also scored higher than other participants on overall emotional outlook, optimism, increased faithfulness to physical exercise, and better sleep.

The results of this research shows that what we're supposed to do this Thanksgiving Thursday could benefit us all year long. If you were a subject in Emmons' research, what five things would you say you're grateful for this week?

I'm grateful for you, church family. As I looked around the gym during our Thanksgiving Pot Luck Feast last Sunday, it made me glad again to "do life" with the Hillcrest Family!

I'm grateful for my assistant, Jami. I'm not nearly as organized, thoughtful, or creative as she makes me look!

I'm grateful for my wife. In the midst of our life's joys and griefs, she maintains faith in God, energy in her many responsibilities, and deep loyalty to family and friends.

I'm grateful for my country. Never take for granted the freedoms and opportunities we have here.

I'm grateful, so very grateful, for my salvation. I'm awestruck that, among all the rebellious race, God would draw this rebel to himself--and at the cost of his own Son.

Start the habit of counting your own blessings. There's health in it!

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John Tierney, "A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day" (http://goo.gl/D4F8ZW)

Dave Munger, "Does 'counting your blessings' really help?" (http://goo.gl/ohNHrP)

Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, "Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life" (http://goo.gl/8so8Oa)

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Links to Your World, Tuesday November 26

 

Time magazine asks 16 famous people what they're thankful for. Here's Rick Warren's answer.

 

Woman Who Had Almost Formed Healthy Sense Of Self Rejoins Social Media

 

Middle-Earth is now on Google Maps.

 

If you could lick the internet, what would it taste like?

 

"Instead of just putting up internet filters so we can control what comes into our computers, perhaps we should put up an “honor filter” that will help us control what goes out of our computers." Do your Facebook posts "honor everyone" as the Bible commands?

 

Colin Woodard says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government (Time). Do you agree that Austin is in the nation of Greater Applalacia?


 

In the study reported here, the value of a typical urban congregation’s contribution to the local economy at $476,663 per year.

 

"The Disney films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King present, in their respective order, the story of a believer’s life from conversion, through lifelong repentance, and end with the return of the Lord to restore His people and His world" (Okay...).

 

This guy has some pretty good arguments for finding coffee in scripture (tongue in cheek of course).

 

"The dying are still the living, and their inherent worth is not diminished simply because their remaining moments on earth are few" (Joe Carter, on end-of-life care)

 

The Atlantic: The president is urging families to talk about health insurance when they get together for the holidays. What could go wrong?

 

"I wanna know what u doin', where u at, where u at? But the Thou is an unknowable unity & not an object to be scrutinized." @Justin_Buber, my new favorite Twitter account to follow: A mash-up of Justin Bieber tweets with Martin Buber quotes. Also, check out KimKierkegaardashian (@KimKierkigaard) for a mash-up of Kim Kardashian tweets with quotes from the famous philosopher. Such as: "@KimKierkegaard: Birthday in Vegas. Danced all night. One tries in vain to forget one's melancholy in distraction, at a distance from it."

 

Ed Stetzer: "I believe the trajectory toward greater acceptance of homosexuality will continue. However, there will always be a sizable minority of people, often people of faith, who hold minority views. Increasingly, Americans will have to wrestle with how to be tolerant in more than one direction." Color me skeptical that the culture will be tolerant in more than one direction. I predict religious liberty will take some real hits in the near future.

 

Because of texting line breaks are replacing periods

Periods are now considered aggressive

This will take some getting used to

 

Winning Ways: Plodding Visionaries

Hillcrest is a church of plodders.

Thank God.

Kevin DeYoung introduced the term "plodding visionaries" to the blogosphere:

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That's my dream for the church -- a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God's glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

Instead of falling for the mirage of overnight revolution, plodding visionaries know that the kind of change Christ brings comes through a long obedience in the same direction. And that means joining a congregation and sticking with it even when you find her dull, predictable, and oh-so-imperfect. "If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification," he says. "The church is the hope of the world -- not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head."

This Sunday we’ll observe the Lord’s Supper and then we’ll take a look at one faithful plodder you’ve never heard about from the book of Nehemiah. It’s part of our sermon series called “Still.”

In preparation for our study, why not commit to a few of the following actions? This is from DeYoung’s suggestions for how to be a plodding visionary:

Become a member of the church you’re attending.

Stay there as long as you can.

Join the plodding visionaries.

Go to church this Sunday and worship in Spirit and truth.

Be patient with your leaders.

Rejoice when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed.

Bear with those who hurt you.

Give people the benefit of the doubt.

Say "hi" to the teenager that no one notices.

Welcome the old ladies with the blue hair and the young men with tattoos.

Volunteer for the nursery.

Attend the congregational meeting.

Bring your fried chicken to the potluck like everybody else.

Invite a friend.

Take a new couple out for coffee.

Give to the Christmas offering.

Sing like you mean it.

Be thankful someone vacuumed the carpet for you.

Enjoy the Sundays that "click."

Pray extra hard on the Sundays that don't.

And in all of this, do not despise the days and weeks and years of small things (Zechariah 4:8–10).

Here's to plodding visionaries. May our tribe increase!

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 12

I'm posting this at 9:10 11/12/13. Clever huh?

 

Kind of hard to argue against the importance of accomplishing these items on this old "to-do" list from Johnny Cash:

 

"Much of what God has made is inherently funny, ridiculous, and infused with sheer delight. Consider the humor in a penguin's waddle. The adorable fluff of a baby chick, a bear scratching its back on a tree, monkeys who pick bugs out of each other's hair. Puppies that spend hours playing, fall asleep wherever they land, then wake and start playing again. The unbelievable combination of traits in the platypus, which European scientists actually believed was an elaborate hoax when they first encountered it in 1798....Perhaps an arresting sense of awe is not the only appropriate way to express our appreciation of what God has made. Our laughter and "aww" can be forms of worship too. Simply noticing and attributing God's works to him is an act of worship. And I believe he is honored in our delight" (Amy Simpson)

 

"We can point cautiously to three large areas that recent data indicate are major contributors to divorce: finances, Facebook, and pornography....Finances, Facebook, and pornography reduce to man’s three great disordered values: money, power, and sex; and these three in turn are merely the failed versions of the three true values that guide human life: faith, hope, and love." (post)

 

Under Obamacare, you're much better off being single or cohabiting than married. Here's one couple considering divorce and cohabitation to make their insurance work.

 

"Has Obamacare made it un-P.C. to be concerned by a serious burden on my family’s well-being?" (NYT) This woman needs a new set of Facebook friends.

 

Sermon Illustration Alert: "People recalling embarrassing events tended to want to apply face creams, a study found. These people also were more likely to want to hide behind large, dark sunglasses than people not feeling embarrassed" (WSJ).

 

Taking a weekly tech sabbath.

 

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 5

Star Wars Imperial Forces invade Kincade paintings:

 

Looks like those Kincade paintings could use the intervention of a few honest-to-Force Jedi knights. Yeah, "Jediism" is a real religion.

 

Proposed new Texas state flag in a project redesigning all 50 state flags

 

Announcing "The United States Devil Map," highlighting the many U.S. landmarks named after the Devil and Hell.

 

When is a Bear like a Duck?

 

"Dude" abides...and evolves. Whether you're saying "Dude" to express approval or disapproval of what your friend did depends on how you say it. Here's an article on the history of "dude."

 

Wine for Cats.