Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and in today's episode we're

asking the question should we be more

ungrateful this is prompted by something

I read this week which is making the

point that UNG gratitude is as important

as gratitude and ungr itude is the

process of naming or listing the things

you're not thankful for the things that

aren't going well and the logic of the

article Works a little something like

this uh most of us know that gratitude

is a positive emotion that actually

makes us feel and therefore be healthier

gratitude can impact the way you go

about your life on a psychological and

even biological level as a result of

that a whole kind of gratitude or

positivity industry has propped up which

is telling us all the time to be

grateful to feel grateful to count your

blessings to make a list of all the

things you're happy for all the time

relentlessly me the other day I was

unwrapping a cough drop uh because I was

preaching multiple services and the

cough drop told me to hang in there

positivity gratitude all the time and

that makes sense because gratitude makes

makes us healthier except for this when

gratitude is inauthentic when we are

saying how grateful we are when we don't

actually feel grateful here's the truth

it produces none of the physical or

mental or emotional benefits that actual

gratitude does that's because fake

gratitude is fake it produces fake

results it's really just a kind of like

forced self-manipulation you you think

if you tell yourself I'm grateful I'm

grateful I'm grateful you might actually

be but it doesn't work like that in fact

one therapist I read quoted in the

article said you can't fake your way

through negative emotions negative

emotions that you don't deal with just

become bigger and worse in the future I

know that one from experience and here's

the thing biblically the Bible does tell

us to be grateful you know the Apostle

Paul will say rejoice always and again I

say to you rejoice there are always

reasons as Christians for us to be

grateful but the Bible also tells us

there are times to lament times to mourn

times to grieve like did you know that

the oldest book of the Bible meaning the

first book of the Bible to ever actually

be written down was the Book of Job that

means that for a while the only

scripture that existed on the planet was

a book that is basically 40 chapters of

lamenting and mourning and grieving have

you read the Psalms for every positive

Psalm there's another one where David or

somebody else is saying how long is this

going to happen God where are you God

what are you doing god listen the Bible

tells us to be honest about the full

gamut of human emotions the Bible tells

us that to live is to experience

difficulty it is to experience suffering

and pain it is to wake up some days and

the list of things you're not thankful

for is greater than the list of things

you are thankful for at least in numeric

total the truth is some days we don't

feel grateful some days we feel angry

sometimes we days we feel frustrated and

if we aren't willing and able to express

those in some ways we're actually

denying scripture so we buy into the

idea that to love God is to be grateful

all the time but if that were true why

would God give us the ssong

why would he give us the Book of Job

it's almost as though God knows he needs

to give us permission to express how we

really feel look the math of the

Christian life is pretty simple no

matter what I put in the UNG gratitude

column there will always be things of

Greater substance in the Gratitude

column there is nothing negative that

can happen to me today that will be

bigger than the positive things God has

done is doing and will do for me in

Jesus but it doesn't doesn't always feel

that way and we do ourselves a

disservice when we pretend that it does

my fear is that some of you listening to

this podcast are irrepressibly positive

not because that's how you always feel

but because you believe that's how

you're supposed to feel and let me just

tell you something that emotional bill

will come due someday and it's far

better for you to let out the stee today

in a prayer to God of lament of a list

of to God that you bring them and you go

why did you let the these things happen

where were you when these things

happened listen we know there are good

answers to those questions even if we

never get them therefore it's okay to

ask them when you refuse to go to God

with negative emotions it's not because

you have a big view of God it's because

you have a small one but the other thing

is I hope we love each of each other

enough to say that I hope you invite the

friends and family and the people you

care about to be real with you to be

honest with you I hope you can sit with

people in their negative emotions

without needing to solve them or to give

them a gratitude list that replaces

their UNG gratitude list life is hard

and we don't get healthier by pretending

that isn't true Isn't Our Savior the one

who cried from the cross my God my God

why have you forsaken me if Jesus can

express negative feelings why also can't

we today be ungrateful to the glory of

God and then remember all the wonderful

things that that are yours in Jesus hey

thanks so much for watching this video

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