Most of the time, we don’t know when we’ve had enough, we feel it – and often too late.
As parents, we snap when our children start irritating the final nerve, not the first. At dinner, only after you order dessert does your stomach tell your brain that you are full. Our muscles often wait until morning to remind us that we overdid something the day before. Similarly, it is not an amount of assets that determines when we have enough fiscal resources ¬– it is our feelings!
More specifically, it’s our relationship to gratitude. As gratitude continues to be studied, one truth is being consistently affirmed by researchers: there is a direct relationship between your practice of gratitude and your belief that you have enough.
In 2019, Frontiers in Psychology published an academic article stating, “The reciprocal relationships suggest the existence of a virtuous circle of human well-being: higher levels of gratitude increase life satisfaction, which in turn increases gratitude, leading to a positive spiral.”
This suggests churches and congregants won’t find contentment in our fiscal lives – even with full banking, investment and retirement accounts – if we don’t have gratitude. We will never feel as if we have enough until we are grateful for what we have.
With this mindset shift, I encourage you to read Philippians 4:1-23 and see how the Apostle Paul weaves together the idea of “rejoicing in the Lord always” and “learning to be content in every situation.” And as you serve your churches as pastors and Stewardship Partners with the resources provided in this quarterly resource, I hope you also catch a vision for becoming a living example of a life defined by gratitude.