AWAKEN GRATITUDE – Spirit Centered Healing Arts

A comprehensive 40 Day Journey to Awaken Gratitude in Your Life through Messages from God, Bible Study, Prayer, and Blessing.

How often do you hear that keeping a gratitude journal will transform your life?

How many times have you tried to keep a gratitude journal?

What happened?

For me, every time I tried it fell flat, became rote, empty and felt fake. It was not life giving at all…it was deadening.

Then God said to me “How can you, or anyone else, express gratitude for a life you do not like? How can you be genuine in expressing thanksgiving when you are angry about the life you are in? How can you be authentic and genuine until you first handle these underlying beliefs and expectations? You can’t force gratitude for the long term; you have to find freedom from the lies that hold it back!”

Then He started me on a forty-day journey to awaken gratitude in my life through Bible study, messages from Him, prayer, and His blessing.

Would you like to join me on this journey as He awakens greater joy, gratitude, and thanksgiving while washing away depression, anxiety, fear, or other lackluster aspects of life?

Together we will explore subjects such as thankfulness, life, stress, worry, sin, responsibility, self-esteem, pride and repentance and learn more about your perspective and God’s perspective. Each day I will ask God for a Bible verse, His thoughts on it, what questions He would like us to ponder, and then explore how He would suggest we pray and receive His blessing so that gratitude can come alive in our lives.

Are you ready to get started?

Day 1

Exploring: Life and our underlying feelings about it.

Genesis 2:7 NLT “Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.”

Imagine this moment. Knowing all that you know about life…imagine this moment. Imagine Me picking up handfuls of dirt and forming a man from it. Does it make you think of a clay image of a man? Does it make you think of a spring of water flowing from the ground, lifting up the dirt and causing it to form beneath my hands? Do you imagine Me simply imagining him and the dirt knows what to do and forms his features?

Imagine this man standing there in the dirt, having just been one with the dirt. It is a statue, and image, but there is no animation. There is no life. There is only dirt, formed into the shape of a man.

Now, imagine me leaning forward and breathing the breath of life into his nostrils. Do you wonder if my mouth touched his face? Did I get dirt on my mouth? Did I blow and the breath went into his nostrils from a few inches away?

Did life happen all at once? Did My breath reach his nostrils and all the sudden he was a live, animated man, or did his face come alive first and then the breath moved through his body?

Imagine the first step where he differentiated himself from the dirt he just came from. The dirt he was stepping on was the dirt from which he was formed. Imagine the sense of where his foot ended and the dirt began. What differentiated that single granule of dirt so that it became part of his toe rather than having stayed where it was to be dirt for the remainder of time on the earth.

What is your initial experience of this moment? Knowing what you know about the story of humankind, what is your experience of this moment? Are you glad it happened? Do you wish you could go back and change anything? If you were standing there next to Me, what would you say as I began to form the dirt into a man? Would you encourage Me, or would you discourage Me from creating this man?

Be honest with Me. What would you say at that moment?

If your sense is that you would encourage Me and be thrilled with Me bringing life into this man then please simply pray a blessing on all mankind from this moment on. Something like “In the name of Jesus Christ I bless all creation from the first breath until the last. I bless creation with the joy of the Spirit of the LORD God almighty Himself. Now, be done for today and come back tomorrow for the next day of our journey.

If your sense is that you would discourage Me and tell Me the pain and suffering is too great and you would really like Me to think carefully before breathing breath into the man formed from dirt then I would like you to realize that it makes sense that being grateful might be hard for you. Let’s work through it together to make it easier.

I speak life over you. I breathe the breath of life into you. I take away the pain, suffering and hardship you have encountered and place it on My Son’s body so that you do not have to remember or experience it any longer. Place your pain onto My Son’s body, all of it. Imagine taking a hand full of dirt that represents the pain, suffering, or a memory of you or anyone you know who has suffered. Now imagine placing it solidly on Jesus’ body, covering Him in the dirt of suffering and pain you have experienced. Keep putting more and more dirt on Him. Anything you can possibly let go of, place it on Jesus. He has already died and suffered for it, so you do not need to be concerned about adding more pain to His experience. It is all taken care of. All the suffering in the world has been taken care of, borne by My Son’s body, processed by His death and resurrection. You have nothing left to carry from your family of origin. You have nothing left to carry from the pain you have suffered or the pain that others in the world have suffered since the first sin in the Garden of Eden. Take a moment and give it all to Jesus. For joy He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2) and He wants to take all the pain and suffering from you so you can walk away fresh, clean, and unscarred.

If you feel the need to hold anything back, please be honest with yourself and with Me. I will not force you to let go of anything that you still need or want to hold onto, but I am offering an opportunity to put it all onto Jesus’ body now. Write down anything you still want to hold onto and keep it in a safe place so that we can revisit it together when you are ready.

When I created the world I knew what would happen. I knew about the suffering and the pain and I chose to create the world anyway. None of this came as a surprise to Me and I do not expect you to bear the consequences of My choice. You do not need to carry any of it, it all belongs to Me and it is all My responsibility, so leave it with Me. I do not want you to carry it any longer and I don’t need you to carry it. Yes, I ask you to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) but I also tell you to lay down your life a living sacrifice to Me (Romans 12:1) so do this now. Lay down the burdens, lay down your life and all the pain and suffering and simply find rest for a moment knowing that Jesus will handle it all. It will all land on Jesus and He will take care of it.

Now, imagine yourself standing beneath a waterfall of warm water on a warm day and this water is the water of the river of life flowing from the throne room (Revelation 22:1). Even if you are still holding onto a few things that you haven’t chosen to let go of yet, stand under this water and feel the refreshment of it cleansing you from all the pain and suffering.

After you experience a sense of being clean and refreshed let Me pray this over you.

“_________ (your name), I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ with life. Not the life you have lived but the life I imagined in all perfection when I first created man. I bless you with a life worth living and one that satisfies your every need. I bless you with My perfect love, My perfect peace, My perfect approval, and My perfect joy. You do not ever need to express gratitude or thanksgiving to Me when it is not real. I bless you with the truth that life is good and you are My beloved child in whom I am well pleased simply because anything that is not pleasing to Me is handled by My Son Jesus so I can simply love you for who you are and not in spite of the sins you commit. I bless you with the truth that Jesus has set you free and you are welcome to experience the joy of life….everlasting. Try it on and see what you think. If you like it you can keep it. If you don’t you can return it for something else! Just come to Me and we will figure it all out together.”

If you would like to respond to God in some way please feel free but you are not obligated. You are welcome to simply accept His gift and try it on to see if it fits.

Day 1 Prayer:

Lord, thank You! Amen

Day 2

Exploring: Life and our underlying feelings about it.

Zephaniah 3:17 Literal Standard Version “Your God YHWH [is] in your midst, A mighty one [to] save, He rejoices over you with joy, He works in His love, He delights over you with singing.”

Take a moment to let these verses speak to you or wash over you through these additional versions:

Peshitta Holy Bible Translated

“LORD JEHOVAH your God within you, the Mighty Man and The Savior, he shall sweeten you in joy and he shall make you new in his love, and he shall make you dance with a song as that in the day of a feast!”

Contemporary English Version

“The LORD your God wins victory after victory and is always with you. He celebrates and sings because of you, and he will refresh your life with his love.”

Do you ever wish I would simply take care of something for you? You have explored, fought, dug into, or attempted healing for many years and nothing changes. The thoughts remain the same, the pain is still there, and you wish it would go away. It keeps rearing its head in every sense of not being enough or in every fight you have with your spouse…and you haven’t been able to get beyond it.

Today is a great day to invite Me into each of those areas and simply allow Me to heal them. Rest in My arms (Matthew 11:28) and know that I will take care of you. Seek My refuge and My strength (Psalm 91:1) and allow Me to be a powerful source of love and light in your life that will heal things that simply have been unhealable by you or anyone you have sought help from.

I do the impossible (Jeremiah 32:27)…you don’t have to.

Let’s start with a simply prayer giving Me permission to do the healing work that I have for you today. If you are willing simply say:

“Lord, I give you permission to work at any level in my life…emotional, spiritual, and physical…or any level of which I am not yet aware.”

Now, take a moment and think about what I am saying in this verse.

About Me:

I am in your midst – right now!
I am mighty
I am mighty to save you from anything getting in the way of living an abundant life (John 10:10).
I am within you. Right now, I am within you. Feel Me there within you. (If you haven’t invited Me in yet or you don’t feel Me there this is a great time to simply say “Jesus, please forgive me of all my sins and past mistakes and come take up residence in Me. Fill me with Your love, Your life, and Your great and mighty power to save. I give everything else to You and receive You fully.”)
I win victory after victory, and I am always with you. Victory is always with you!
I work from a place of love (not judgement or condemnation).

About you:

I am mighty to save you!
I rejoice over you
I experience joy when I am with you and when I think of you
I delight in you
I sing over you
I will sweeten you in joy
I will make you new in My love
I will cause you to dance as though you are celebrating at a great feast
I celebrate because of you
I sing because of you
I will refresh your life with My love

Imagine the moment you were born. Imagine you are wrapped in a warm blanket, the birth is over and calmness is within the room. Imagine Jesus being there in the room. His Presence brings joy, love, and peace after a time that felt hard, chaotic, difficult, possibly even scary at times. He walks over to you, picks you up and looks into your face. Imagine that, at that moment, you open your eyes and simply see His face and the incredible amount of love He has for you. Close your eyes again and feel that look go into your entire body. Hear the song that He is singing over you in the room. Imagine Him dancing through the room with you in His arms, celebrating your birth. Then hear His voice as He says to you “I imagined you long ago and on this day I have the joy of meeting you, in person, for the very first time. Today you have gone from My imagination into My arms. You bring Me great joy simply because you exist. It is so good to meet you!”

During the pregnancy there may have been turmoil in your parent’s life, they may have needed healing themselves, they may have been surprised by you, they may not even have wanted the pregnancy at first – all of these things may have happened and, at some level, you or your body may have picked up on these things but, the moment you were born…Jesus looked at you and said “It is very good” (Genesis 1:31) which washed away anything else that may have happened, because He is more mighty, powerful, and victorious than anyone or thing.

Take a moment to soak in this. It is not a healing you need to do for yourself; it is a healing that Jesus is providing for you, you simply get to receive it. Read over the statements about God and about yourself a few times and if you want to write down a few words that express how you feel by realizing, possibly for the first time, that you are truly a blessing to God, to this world, and to all those around you…whether you felt that or not at the time…allow yourself that moment.

If you find yourself telling Me that any of this is not true, that you are not worthy, or you can’t accept this, simply take a moment and hand that over to Me. It doesn’t belong to you. When you were born you were fully present with Me, you were fully able to receive My love and care, and anything else shows that something else got in the way of that at some point in your life. You may be holding on to control – hand that over to Me. I have a better life for you than you can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20, John 10:10). You may be experiencing a rebellious spirit – ask Me to get rid of it for you. You may be afraid of abandonment – know that I will never leave you (Hebrews 13:5) and no one can take you from Me (John 10:28). You may believe that you are not worthy of My love – nothing can separate Me from My love for you (Romans 8:39). You may believe many things about yourself that do not line up with what I am saying in this verse.

Recognize that I am telling the truth and I cannot lie (Numbers 23:19), therefore, what is said in this verse and listed above is not a lie, it is the truth. If anything contradicts it, that is the lie, and I would like to replace it with the truth if you would like this. You are welcome to acknowledge what you are thinking but please do not defend it. Instead, let it go and replace it with the truth of who I am or who you are in Me as detailed above.

If you can, take a moment to experience or feel Me within you and the peace and joy that I have with you and in you. Know that a true and powerful healing happened today in this time together and once something is healed it does not go back to the way it was. It was My might, and it is My victory that has brought healing to you today. It cannot be reversed or taken away.

Day 2 Prayer:

Lord, please help the healing to remain strong within me. Do not let me doubt what happened here today and if there is more that is needed I ask You to cause it to happen as the angels minister to me (Hebrews 1:14). You know that I need full and complete healing and I need it soon so that I am able to do all that I am here to do on the path You created me for. Please help me heal completely from my own sins as well as those of others so that I can be set free from that which holds me back.

Amen

Day 3

Exploring: Is God good? How can such bad things happen in this world if He is?

John 9:30 MSG “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing, will be exposed as blind.”

This passage is more commonly read in a translation such as the one below:

“Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’”

In the introduction to Eugene Peterson’s The Message – The Old Testament Prophets © 2000 Eugene shares something very essential about judgement that changes every single perspective about judgement and bad things in this world.

Page 8 “Basically, the prophets did two things: They worked to get people to accept the worst as God’s judgment – not a religious catastrophe or a political disaster, but judgment. If what seems like the worst turns out to be God’s judgment, it can be embraced, not denied or avoided, for God is good and intends our salvation. So judgment, while certainly not what we human beings anticipate in our planned future, can never be the worst that can happen. It is the best, for it is the work of God to set the world, and us, right.

And the prophets worked to get people who were beaten down to open themselves up to hope in God’s future. In the wreckage or exile and death and humiliation and sin, the prophet ignited hope, opening lives to the new work of salvation that God is about at all times and everywhere.”

Romans 8:28 confirms this “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

If you read Romans 8:28 as “this only applies to people who are called according to His purpose” then you have an opportunity right now to simply become part of My purpose and then you can expect even the bad thing in your life to come to good.

Knowing that all I want is good. I do not want anyone to be lost or condemned

2 Peter 3:9 CEV “In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.

Use this perspective to process everything you see in the world.

If, just as Eugene Peterson so aptly points out, every single “bad” thing that happens is a result of My judgment it simply means that anything bad is a way of bringing people more into alignment with the good that I Am so that good things will happen. This gives an opportunity for communication between us.

People point out the terrible things that happened in the Old Testament. But if you look at the root of every single event, it is My protection, My desire to bring them to Me, or My desire to help them figure out that the path they are on leads to eternal destruction so that they will return to Me where they are safe, secure, protected, and within My refuge for all of eternity.

Thinking about the world today. Pick something that really bothers you about what is happening. Now, run it through the lens that it is simply My judgment, pointing out that something is not lining up with the perfect law that underlies all of creation that leads to the abundant life I desire for everyone (John 10:10).

Now the next step is the powerful one. Rather than judging or condemning the people who are causing the problem, instead bless them with My Will. Bless them to see Me, to know Me and to do My Will because when all do My Will you have heaven on earth. If you choose to blame, judge or condemn you are aligning with darkness rather than light and darkness can never bring light to a situation. Therefore, you need to either pray or act, depending on what I indicate, so that you can bring light and blessing to a situation.

What is an example of this?

When it is really hard to find a job ask yourself…what is the good that God is doing in this situation? Am I burned out and I need a break and I will simply trust God to provide at exactly the right time as soon as I am ready? Maybe, I have strayed away from God and He wants me to have a need that I cannot fix so that I have to reach out to Him and ask for His help. Maybe, He is changing the path I am on and this is His way of doing that. Maybe there is sin in this world and the job I am intended to have has been destroyed by someone else – bless that person or that institution so that it can come into alignment with Me so that the job will exist for you.

There can be so many possible reasons for what is happening that looks bad. If you can really believe that I am good then the perspective will change and you will see what needs to shift, in yourself, or in others, so that the situation can align with the abundance, truth and goodness that I Am.

Another example might be a country that is ravaged by poverty, famine or starvation. If you truly believe that I am good and I want only good for My children then look at it from this perspective and see what I am communicating. Look for verses in the Bible that share what is happening or what needs to be done. One possibility is:

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

If you are a leader in the country that is suffering you have the opportunity to do something very powerful about this. You can use your prayers and influence to turn people to Me, to ask Me to be their God so that they will be called by My name, then together you can humble yourselves, pray, seek My face and ask Me what the wicked ways are that need to be turned away from and actively seek what I want for you instead….and then I will forgive your sin and heal your land.

If you are an outsider and have no influence within this country you can pray for this to happen, you can bless the country as a whole, you can look at what is happening and ask for the leaders to have open eyes to see from My perspective.

If atrocities have happened in the history of the country that have not been repented for and healed then you can pray, you can intercede on their behalf, and maybe I will even ask you to go to the site of some of these atrocities to pour My Holy Communion onto the land so that it can be healed from the bloodshed that was an atrocity to My Kingdom. If I ask you to do this, do it from a place of blessing and not condemnation or you are adding further atrocities to the land because My desire is to bless all people so that all will be My Children for all eternity.

The point is not the specifics of what I am doing or asking you to do in this instance. I will reveal all of this to you if you desire. The point is simply this…anything bad happening is from Me to bring all of My children home to Me. Assume this and seek Me out rather than focusing on what is bad or the bad people doing the bad things. Seek Me and My answers and My involvement and bless the people involved and you will effect change….whether you see it immediately, after some time, or after you are with Me does not matter as much as the obedience of doing what I have asked.

And the biggest bonus of all is that you begin to actually experience a change in the verse:

Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.”

You will begin to think My thoughts and do things the way I know they are best and you will align your will to My Will and we will become closer and closer to each other and it will be a blessing to Me and a blessing to you, which will bring more of My blessing into this world.

Sure this sounds like a big task but….just focus on one or two things, not everything, and come to know Me better in the process.

I am right here with you to help!

Of course, as is true of anything with Me, when you think you have Me figured out there is a wrench in it – in this case it is the story of Job who suffered even though he did not do something wrong…but stay close to Me and I will let you know when, and if, this is ever the case in the circumstances in which you are looking for answers.

Day 3 Prayer:

Lord, so much is said about you that is wrong or a lie and I don’t want to believe any of it. Please help me discern between truth and lies especially when it comes to who You are and what You do. I want to believe fully and completely that You are good and that You bring good out of all things (Romans 8:28). Please help me fully realize and live this way.