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Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have done much of the research on gratitude.
In one study, they asked all participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics.
One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week.
A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had displeased them, and the third wrote about events that had affected them (with no emphasis on them being positive or negative).
After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives.
Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.
It isn’t always possible to change your circumstances, but you can change where you focus your mind and heart.
Making gratitude a daily practice can increase your happiness and even improve your health.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is being aware of and thankful for the good things you have.
These good things are not necessarily material possessions.
They can be relationships, situations, or anything positive in your life.
Gratitude is a feeling that might come to you spontaneously, but it's also a daily practice that you can cultivate.
Choosing to count your blessings and taking the time to be grateful for good things in your life can have far-reaching positive effects.
The Benefits of Gratitude
Increased happiness.
Gratitude reduces a multitude of toxic emotions, from envy and resentment to frustration and regret.
Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher, has conducted multiple studies on the link between gratitude and well-being.
His research confirms that gratitude effectively increases happiness and reduces depression.
Gratitude helps people feel happier and experience positive emotions.
When you focus your mind on things that make you feel grateful, you will find that positivity follows.
Reduced depression.
Verbally expressing or silently reflecting on gratitude decreases depression.
Practicing regular gratitude has also been shown to protect against developing depression in the future.
Strength when facing adversity.
Gratitude is good for your emotional health.
It can help give you emotional strength and resilience when you're confronted with stress, loss, grief, or trauma.
Gratitude lowers cortisol, a stress hormone, in your body.
Lowered cortisol levels help you avoid many physical and mental side effects of stress.
A 2006 study published in Behavior Research and Therapy found that Vietnam War veterans with higher levels of gratitude experienced lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder.
A 2003 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that gratitude was a major contributor to resilience following the terrorist attacks on September 11.
Recognizing all that you have to be thankful for —even during the worst times—fosters resilience.
Improved physical health.
People who are grateful tend to sleep better and have fewer aches and pains.
Increased feelings of gratitude might even indirectly improve immune function and reduce inflammation.
According to a 2011 study published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.
Spend just 15 minutes jotting down a few grateful sentiments before bed, and you may sleep better and longer.
Community building.
People who are focused on gratitude are inspired to give back and support their community in positive ways.
This means cultivating gratitude will not only benefit you — it'll also benefit those around you.
The call to the ministry is an invitation to unequalled privilege—none of us would argue that.
It is an invitation to unsurpassed blessing, but that is not all.
The call to the ministry is also an invitation to discouragement.
What pastor, while understanding the privilege and the blessing of his calling, has not also has his heart broken?
We all have.
And there are those times when we are disheartened and downcast—maybe when we feel like giving up.
Paul knew deep, penetrating, disheartening disappointment over the Corinthian church.
Their shallowness, their sin, their rebellion was a sad return for the great love he had felt for them, and the great sacrifice he had made in their behalf.
And this Corinthian church had potential over any other European church.
The city had been restored by Julius Caesar after being in ruins for 100 years.
It was a magnificent place.
It was more open to the gospel than other cities, and the Apostle had great success in founding the church there, making the resident Jews extremely jealous.
In the nearly 20 months or so that he labored in that evil city, he built deep affection for the believers there.
The church was flourishing, and apparently strong.
But because he loved them so deeply, they had the capability to hurt him, and they did.
Upon his leaving one sin after another, he took up residence in that communion of believers.
The pressure of caring for that church was more difficult than all the other physical pain he had suffered through his multiple persecutions.
The concern for the church hurt him more than anything that was done to him physically.
Anxiety over the Corinthians ate at his noble soul.They possessed all the gifts.
They came behind in no gift, but they were divided, disorderly, worldly—and chaos reigned in their worship.
Sin stained the Lord’s table.
They fought each other, sued each other, sexually sinned with each other, and were proud all the while.
Conditions in the Corinthian church had become so bad that Apollos would not stay or return to Corinth, though Paul urged him to do that.
Additionally, false teachers had come into the Corinthian church and managed to deceive members of the church to join an open mutiny against Paul.
Paul’s character was being blasted, his controversy with Peter (indicated in Galatians 2) was being exploited, his name was being slandered.
Doctrinal issues, the use of spiritual gifts were all mixed up with personality jealousies.
They winked at incest, they abused their marriages, they ate at demon feasts, they failed to give as they should, they questioned the resurrection … what a church.
A congregation to bring grief to a pastor’s heart.
And so much so that Paul was not sure he could even go back there—for two reasons.
One, he was afraid he wouldn’t be welcome; and secondly, if he wasn’t welcome, he was afraid he would say more that would exacerbate their animosity toward him.
On top of that, in Ephesus, where he was, a riot had started that could have taken his life.
And some also tell us that he may well have picked up a serious, even potentially fatal illness, to which he refers in chapter 1 and chapter 6. He’s really at the lowest point of his ministry when he writes this letter.
And it’s not hard to understand.
He’s on the brink of death every day, he says.
Every day he knows could be his last.
A riot starts all around him, and the church which he loves is in utter chaos.
And the main issue there is whether Paul is true or false.
His own integrity is being questioned.
And of course what compounded the anxiety that this produced was the deep, deep love that he had for that church.
He had already written them a letter out of much anguish of heart, much affliction with tears.
He refers to it in 2:4.
He then sent Titus, you remember, to Corinth.
He sent him with that severe letter—that second letter that’s not included in the New Testament—and he was now waiting for Titus to come back, and he wanted to hear how they responded to the letter.
Such is the scene before us.
He can’t stay where he is, he can’t go where he wants to go.
The people he loves so deeply have turned on him.
Titus hasn’t come back with a report.
He doesn’t know what the situation is.
It’s in that scenario that we find him penning these words.
Look with me at verse 12.
The first two verses establish for us the trouble in Paul’s soul.
Look back at verse 12. Troas—
“When I came to Troas,” he says.
He has by now left where he was, he has come to Troas—a seaport city on the Aegean Sea in Western Asia Minor at the mouth of the Dardanelles, founded in about 300 B.C., ten miles from ancient Troy in Mysia.
And Augustus had made it a Roman colony.
His departure had been caused by the life-threatening riot in Ephesus.
But he had already planned to go to Macedonia, and Troas was on the way, whether he went by land or by sea.
Paul, by the way, had been to Troas before, according to Acts 16.
But apparently on his first visit, he did not found a church.
A church is mentioned at Troas in Acts 20, so it is most likely that he founded a church on this brief visit.
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