How Gratitude Sets You Apart is a post I originally wrote for Kingdom Edge Magazine. You can read it all here now.

How Gratitude Sets You Apart

Do you struggle with negativity?

I’ve struggled with it for as long as I can remember. On personality tests, I show up as melancholy, and the glass always appears half full to me.

Negativity is something I’ve intentionally had to fight for years. External situations stirred my negativity, but internal negativity also stirred me up.

It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to fight off negativity. Sometimes it wins the fight. I’m sure if you struggle with negativity, you understand.

But recently I heard a surprising fact about how gratitude links to negativity.

How Gratitude Links to Negativity

According to Dr. Henry Cloud, study after study has proven that the main factor that differentiates positive people from negative people is gratitude.

This is true across religions, ages, races, socioeconomic classes, and every other distinction.

As you have probably noticed, negativity is everywhere you look, in person and online. You probably fight it from inside and outside like I do. Sometimes, it might win the fight in your day-to-day life.

But if you practice gratitude, you can overcome negativity, be set apart from others, and become a shining light of positivity into other people’s lives.

Psalm 4:3a NIV says, “Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself.” If we are followers of God, he sets us apart for his delight and his glory.

We are to live in the world yet not be of it (John 17:14-19), and gratitude can be one way we demonstrate being set apart.

Gratitude will help us shine our light into the world too.

Gratitude Helps Set Us Apart

For example, I was recently in the bread aisle at the supermarket at a busy time of day. I needed a bag of pumpkin bagels, but a woman in front of me was staring at the bagels with frustration and blocking my way.

I said, “Excuse me,” and reached for the pumpkin bagels at the front of the shelf.

Then she saw the blueberry bagels for which she was searching. They were hidden behind the pumpkin ones.

She said in a frustrated tone, “Oh, doesn’t that just drive you nuts when you can’t find something you need? And there it was the whole time!” I saw stress all over her face.

Trying to help her relax, I said with a smile, “Well, what matters most is that you found the ones you wanted, right? You can be thankful for that.”

I watched her pause and think. She said, “Yeah, that’s a better way to look at it. I don’t usually see things that way.”

Changing Your Gratitude Setting

If we had had more time, I would have told her that for a long time, I have struggled with seeing things in a negative light. But I’ve learned to choose gratitude when negativity triggers me, and I always feel better for making that choice.

I hope that my gratitude seemed “set apart” to that woman in the supermarket. That she drove home with inspiration to be thankful for the smallest things, which leads to gratitude for the bigger things.

That brief meeting with her just for a moment reminded me how far I’ve come in overcoming negativity with gratitude. Now it’s not just a triumph in my own mind and heart, but a way I can be set apart for God’s glory in front of others, so they can learn to choose gratitude over negativity too.

I pray if you struggle with negativity, you’ll see it as a prompt to choose gratitude. It can set you apart from others so that you can shine God’s light into their lives. That’s a purpose worth pursuing, and I hope it inspires you to seek reasons to be grateful.

This post originally appeared on Kingdom Edge Magazine in November 2022.

How gratitude sets us apart: learn more here. #gratitude #grateful #christianliving
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