About 6 years ago, in 2019, I wrote my first book: The Gratitude Map.
At the time I had gone through many intense experiences in a short window, like breaking off an engagement, getting fired and threatened with a lawsuit, losing most of my clients and several other things you can read about in the book. These prompted me to make a decision about how to live my life going forward: I could either wallow in sadness, regret and anger, or I could develop a daily practice of gratitude.
After I wrote the book, many people benefited from the simple and powerful, yet practical knowledge. Online I had over 4,000 people graduate from the audio course, and my recordings and podcasts on gratitude were listened to tens of thousands of times. I had a Facebook group with several hundred people in it, and I was leading retreats and workshops on gratitude.
Yet this was just the beginning, because I would soon realize I had a long way to go. An experience of being totally sick and miserable on a cruise later that year taught me that I hadn’t learned as much as I had thought, and it also began to draw me closer back to God as the source of gratitude and generosity in life.
Over the course of the ensuing years and into today, many things happened. I lost everything yet again, found Jesus, then lost my voice, totally reinvented my podcast, began making YouTube videos and now — 10 years after my journey with gratitude began in 2015 — I am re-releasing my first book and program the way it should have always been: with God at the center.
In the coming months and years as the world goes through the final chapters of history, I believe that our practice of the timeless things will become more and more important. The news will one day be meaningless, and so will what you own. So then what matters is learning to develop a practice of gratitude, connect to God, overcome the obstacles inherent to life and create abundant relationships with others. These are the focus of my book.
When I originally wrote the book it had a lot of great and practical advice, but it was missing the key component which is God. Today this book is much different. It’s bigger by about 20,000 words, has a chapter on the Sabbath and has been totally redone to be consistent with what I believe today, while retaining the practicality and simplicity of the original vision.
The book reads like an adventure through different places, to bring life to an otherwise philosophical domain by way of professional illustrations, vivid metaphors and fun exercises. It also comes with a workbook and matching poster, which you can grab as a bundle in the store to really help you dig into the project. The audiobook has been totally re-recorded and will be available free on the website, on YouTube/Rumble and in the library for download for members. The Gratitude Map used to be a course listed in the “Courses” section, but those materials have been taken down. It is now part of the free “Encouragement” section. The original book has also been taken down from Amazon and is only available in the merch store as the updated version.
So who is the book for? The answer is anyone. If you are feeling stuck in life and need help discovering your purpose, or if you need support in dealing with suffering and the challenges of life — this book will have something for you. If you want help to improve your relationships or simply reconnect to God through a devotional type journey, this book will also have something for you.
The book will join my Dance of Life Devotional and The Way Home to create the foundation of my encouragement and gospel-oriented materials, especially as support devotionals going into the final series, The Salvation Series. As the devotional content is coming to an end at the end of April, beginning in May and through the beginning of November will release one section of The Gratitude Map as Monday encouragement content.
I did not plan on ever revisiting this project, but here we are. As usual God had other plans, and I’m glad — because it would have been a shame to leave it alone and not bring it back from the dead to edify and serve you in a God-centered way. I hope you enjoy and also share with your friends who may need it, as these things will be more and more important as time goes on.
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