Gratitude and Abundance

When you think of November, do you think of scarcity?

As a boy,


My parents reiterated to me, "If you're grateful for what you have, you will never want."

A common, underlying theme among every book in the self-help genre (that I have read) is gratitude.

There have been studies done like the following:

"We took nearly 300 students who were going through mental health counseling at a university ... those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health four weeks and 12 weeks after their writing exercise ended."

There is story after story like this.

Gratitude improves our well-being.

A story from the Bible that builds from this is when Jesus heals the 10 lepers.

I love the story because (as you know) Jesus heals all 10 but ONLY ONE returns and says "thank you."

To that one Jesus says, "Thy faith hath made thee whole".

I can't think of a more abundant phrase than that. The healed leper's gratitude opened him up to receiving even more.

Scarcity-based thinking limits our potential.

When we open our mind up with gratitude and some good ol' fashioned optimism ..

We fuel abundant thinking.

And instead of being stuck thinking there will never be enough and wanting all of the time.

We, instead, can't believe the expansive life of opportunity each of us is in. That's perspective.

I made a painting of this Bible story showing the moment the one leper returns.

And since November reminds me of abundance and gratitude, That painting is the painting of the month in my calendar.

Our life will never be enough if we choose to focus on what we don't have and think in scarcity..

To a life of gratitude and abundance,

-Josh

Josh Nelson

Josh is an illustrator, concept artist, and HUGE proponent of inspirational/motivational content. His goal with his art is to inspire and uplift anyone who stumbles upon it.