Welcome to our Together on Mission Podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, the scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with Him throughout your day. Your hopes to strabish find you, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission Podcast, where we start a conversation with Jesus in the morning and enjoy that conversation with Him throughout the rest of the day. And today's conversation is going to be all about gratefulness, all about thankfulness, of course.
And I'm going to title the podcast, Greatfulness. Of course, I thought about thankfulness, but I just, I'm leaning toward the gratefulness. And we're going to be in Psalm 136 this morning. And as I was reflecting on this Psalm, reflecting on my life and your life and all the things in our lives, one of the things I realized this morning is that the things that we're most stressed out about are the things that we are most grateful for.
Now, let's think about that for just a moment. The things that we're most stressed out about, the things that we're most frustrated with, the people that we're most frustrated with are the people that we are most grateful for. There are two sides to that coin. And so often we look at the frustration, anxious, ungrateful side of the coin, when the other side of the coin is, oh my gosh, I'm so thankful for this person.
I'm so thankful for this thing. I mean, take America, for example. We can so often be so frustrated, the election, this, this person, the nation going in this direction, but the other side of that coin and the reason why we feel the frustration so deeply is because we are so, so grateful for this great nation. Think about your kids or your grandkids or your spouse or your best friend.
Sometimes we can be so, why won't they get this or why can't we connect better or why can't we get over that thing that is difficult to talk about or whatever, but the other side of that coin of ungratefulness or being stressed out or frustrated is that we are so, so grateful, so deeply grateful for those relationships. It's the case with our gifting as well. Whatever your gifting is, there's two sides to that coin. Sometimes we can think things like, well, man, it's so heavy on me when so and so is not doing well and it stresses me out and it concerns me when we have this gifting of compassion and the other side of the coin of compassion is a heaviness and a waviness.
And so really it's true as we ponder it this morning in the presence of Jesus that the things we're most stressed out about are probably the things that we're most grateful for, our work, the dinner we're going to do tonight with our family, the team, you know, that we lead, our health, the local church, how much money we make. I mean, the things that we're most stressed out about are probably the things that we are most grateful for. And so this morning, what I want to do as we enter into the first few verses of this psalm, I'd like to flip that coin. I'd like to go to the other side of the coin and think about how incredibly grateful we are about the things and the people that we think about the most.
Now, psalm 136 simply says, give thanks to the Lord for he is good and his love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, his love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of hosts for his love endures forever. Give thanks, give thanks, give thanks.
The psalm just goes on and on and on and it goes into God's creation. It goes into all the things that God created and that he declared good and it goes into God's faithfulness for rescuing Israel. It goes into God's faithfulness on fighting on behalf of Israel. It goes into God's faithfulness for bringing Israel into the promise land.
It goes into God's faithfulness and it's a psalm of thanksgiving and of gratefulness for who God is, for what God has given us, for what God has made and in the last verse in the Psalm, verse 26, give thanks to the God of heaven. It's a psalm of gratefulness and I don't know about you, but maybe you didn't wake up this morning thankful for America. Maybe you woke up stressed and concerned and anxious. Well, the other side of that coin is your deep gratefulness for this great nation.
Gratefulness for your kids, your work, your church and all of the things that God has given us and there's such a power in gratefulness. I mean, we can literally transform our mind and our hearts and our relationships with other people in a moment. And so one of the questions I would love to just ask and allow to simmer for just a moment after we've read some of those verses is what are you deeply thankful for? What are you deeply grateful for?
And I'll bet that the answers that come to your mind are some of the things and some of the people that most stress you out, that most create anxiety. And to be honest, there are a few things that really can destroy gratefulness. I can think of three off the top of my head. Number one, comparison is one of the best destroyers of gratefulness.
Whenever we compare what we have to what someone else has, whether it's income or a relationship or a gifting or the way we look or whatever, whenever we allow our comparison to infiltrate our heart and our mind, it tends to just destroy gratefulness and it accentuates some of the things about those that we love the most to cause us to be concerned or not fulfilled. Comparison is one of the greatest destroyers of gratefulness. The other one that comes to my mind is unrealistic expectations. And our heart and our mind and our world are full of unrealistic expectations about our country.
We have unrealistic expectations about great America should be. And what that's going to do is that's going to destroy gratefulness. It's almost impossible to be grateful when the only thing we focus on is expectations of what it should be. We have unrealistic expectations on our kids and what they should be and what they should know as kids.
We have unrealistic expectations on our coworkers and our team members and our churches and what we should make. And we can lose gratefulness in a moment because of our unrealistic expectations. You know, thoroughly, we can be so preoccupied with the future that it can destroy gratefulness in the present. And that's one of the things about gratefulness.
It's in the moment reality. We can remember the past, but gratefulness is an in the moment reality. And what gratefulness does is it brings us into the moment to be thankful and grateful for the things in our life that we truly are grateful for. And as this begins to grow in our heart, as this gratefulness begins to take root in our lives, what we will then be set free to do is express that gratefulness.
And express that thankfulness with those people and about those things that are in our lives. That's one of the reasons why I love this song because it's an announcement to God of how thankful and how grateful we are for who he is and what he's done and what he's made and what he's brought into our lives, even though it's not perfect and it never will be perfect because that's part of what life is all about. And so when we learn how to express this gratefulness to God, we then begin to grow in the excitement and in the focus and the confidence of expressing gratefulness and thankfulness to those people and those things that are around us. And so let's just imagine for a moment what it would be like to go through the day genuinely grateful.
Imagine what it would do to others' experience of us if we would go through the day grateful for them and for other things. Imagine how that would change our perspective on ourselves and everything that we're a part of if we practiced the practice of gratefulness. And finally, let's just imagine what today could be like if we would begin the day with gratefulness and continue the day with gratefulness. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love and doors forever.
We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by you today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our Ministries or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.