{"id":1215,"date":"2018-12-31T12:28:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T19:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?post_type=portfolio&#038;p=1215"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:05:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T20:05:43","slug":"more-gratitude-means-less-stress","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/more-gratitude-means-less-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"More Gratitude Means Less Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p>\u201c<strong>In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you<\/strong>\u201d (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2012\/sites\/default\/files\/img\/english\/Gratitude_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"247\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I used to think that life was a series of hills and valleys. I thought we faced good times and bad times, and they didn\u2019t intermix.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not how life works. There\u2019s no time in your life when everything is good or everything is bad. No matter how good your life seems, you always have something to work on. No matter how bad life gets, you always have something to thank God for.<\/p>\n<p>The Bible tells us, \u201cIn everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you\u201d (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV).<\/p>\n<p>Notice the Bible doesn\u2019t tell us to thank God for everything. We\u2019re told to thank God in everything.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a big difference between the two. You don\u2019t need to thank God for everything. You don\u2019t have to thank God for cancer or someone\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2012\/sites\/default\/files\/img\/english\/Gratitude_1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"265\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But you can be thankful for something at all times in your life. You can always find a blessing in your life to be grateful for.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, God includes gratitude in the Bible\u2019s classic text on overcoming stress in Philippians 4. When we\u2019re stressed and worried about something in life, the Bible says to \u201cask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart\u201d (Philippians 4:6 GNT).<\/p>\n<p>Grateful people are less stressed.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to be stressed and grateful at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>Gratitude gets your eyes off of yourself and gets them onto others. Instead of looking at what they don\u2019t have, grateful people look at what they do have.<\/p>\n<p>That choice always leads to less stress.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":1225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[35],"class_list":["post-1215","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-english-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/1215\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}