Hearts of Gratitude
"Have you ever looked at your kids and thought, 'They seem a bit entitled lately'? That's exactly what my wife Tiffani and I recently experienced."
As disciplemakers, we are always looking for teachable moments. When we come across a teachable moment, we want to capitalize on it. The problem was, at that point, we didn’t know how to move forward with anything but frustration. “How do we have such entitled kids?” was the thought going through my mind. Tiffani’s look said it all: we must do something about this.
“I have an idea,” she later stated. “What if we start to focus on gratitude? What if we work on talking through being grateful with our kids each day? Maybe that will help them be more appreciative and less entitled.” We understand the impact gratitude has on us. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NASB 2020). God’s will for us is always to be thankful, talk to Him, and rejoice. It seems simple, yet was currently a challenge in our home.
How do we do that? How do we make a turn toward giving thanks always? This is where “Hearts of Gratitude” was born. As we discussed options, we came up with an idea that our family of seven would take turns sharing something they were grateful for from that day. The goal would be to be as specific as possible, and what was shared needed to be from that current day.
This has been a fun family exercise. Each day, at different times, we just state, “It’s time for Hearts of Gratitude!” It could be surrounding a meal, before bedtime prayer, or anywhere in-between. It’s simple. Doesn’t cost us anything, yet seems to be valuable.
Tiffani and I were struck with a teachable moment and decided to act on it. At Plethos, we strive to equip people to be disciplemakers in their homes and circles of influence. One resource we teach is the 4D Circle. Anytime we encounter a teachable moment, we can walk through the 4D circle. We debrief on the situation. We want to understand it fully. We dig into God’s Word to understand how to proceed. Then, we discuss our options and decide to put our plan into action and do it--the 4D circle is not complete until we act on our plan.
When we observed entitled kids, this presented a teachable moment. Our frustration was met with an opportunity to debrief about the situation, our parenting, our kids, and much of what led up to this point. We were quickly reminded of what God’s Word says about gratitude during the dig phase. We discussed our options before making a plan that we called “Hearts of Gratitude” and implemented our plan in the do phase.
The 4D’s. It’s simple. Many of us probably do this on a regular basis without having labels on how we talk through our own teachable moments. No matter the labels we place on things, the important aspect is that we notice the opportunities God places before us to help disciple those in our homes and our circles of influence.
I’m grateful for teachable moments like these.
What are you grateful for today?