One of the things that I always end up talking about in disciple-making is coping skills. Mostly because I don’t think we have enough of them, and from my experience, if we don’t have good coping skills we end up getting derailed in our faith walk.

For example, if I oversleep and become late for a very scheduled day what’s the first thing I am going to cut? My morning quiet time with God. Even though I know that is probably what I need the most, I’ll cut it to get that time back, and because God never complains when I cut Him out.

This week I was working with the residents of Joshua Recovery Ministries and we were talking about gratitude. What they understand is something we probably all need a little dose of:

Gratitude is a discipline that keeps our hearts and mind in a healthy place.

Far too often I tend to think about gratitude as a reaction to the situation when instead, I should be thinking about gratitude as the posture of my day.

The teaching on Monday was inspired by Pastor and author Mitchel Lee. Pastor Mitchel wrote his latest book, Even If (you can listen to the podcast here) all about what happens in Daniel 3. In Daniel 3 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown into a blazing furnace for failure to comply with the King’s request. And moments before what could have been certain death they look to the King and say “Even if…”. Even if we are killed at this moment we will not turn away from the one true God.

What I love about this story is that their posture of gratitude isn’t dependent on their circumstances, it isn’t dependent on what they have or don’t have - it is just “Even If” gratitude.

Even if I fail - I’m thankful.

Even if I am wronged - I’m thankful.

Even if I don’t know what’s going to happen next - I’m thankful.

You can have an “Even If” level of gratitude when you are connected to the true source of all that we have to be thankful for - Jesus.

So, what’s the coping skill? Well, the coping skill is to remember that when we start the day from a posture of gratitude it changes everything, and the best way to do that is a bullet list of three things you are thankful for in different stages of your life; emotional, physical, spiritual. We left Monday night challenging our residents to make a gratitude journal, and I’ll challenge you to do the same.

Make “Even If” gratitude part of your daily disciplines and who knows what might happen!