November 19, 2023
Reading: Psalm 100
Focus: Psalm 100:4 – Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.
Father God, We are thankful for Your love and Your mercy. Help us to keep thanksgiving in our hearts daily. Help up to praise You from sunup to sundown. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Suddenly, we are here at the holidays of Thanksgiving and soon, Christmas. Man! has this year passed quickly. Seems like I had just started this blog. I’ve watched my grandson turn 7 and my granddaughter turn 13. They were babies just yesterday. Time flies when you’re having fun, right?
What is Thanksgiving? It can be many things to different people. Food. Family. Friends. Football. Hunger. Pain. Loneliness. Hopelessness. What is it to you?
As I sit down to write, I look back on the last year and, for that matter, the last 68 years of my life. I have so many things to be thankful for. Some good and some, not so much. But all in all, I am thankful for the good as well as the bad. The good . . . well . . . because they were good. The bad? Let’s just say they were hard learned lessons.
I retired about a year and a half ago. I hadn’t planned to retire yet, but God had it in His plans that I should. It opened a lot of opportunities for me. One is this blog. Another is the time to see people in need and take the opportunity to pray with and for them. I have become more involved in my church. I have found more time to think on the things God wants me to think on. Granted, I am not doing it as much as I should yet, but I am trying. Our pastor keeps telling us, “Word before the world.” In other words, start your day in the Word of God before taking on the world.
I am thankful for my family and for the home we have (BTW: the picture is not my family). The table we are privileged to set and the clothes on our backs. I am thankful that we can make ends meet. Maybe not lap over, but they do meet. Thankful enough to pay tithe on the money that we do receive and to trust God to make the rest be sufficient for our needs. And He does! I am thankful for the husband that God gave me 47 years ago and for the young man that is our son. Thankful that I have my health, such as it is. Thankful that I wake up every morning. Thankful that I had praying grandmothers and parents. Thankful for their love.
There is so much to be thankful for. I am even thankful for the country that I live in. The USA is not perfect, but we do have more freedoms compared to what other countries have on this planet. Some of our freedoms are being silently taken away from us but we still have the freedom to worship God openly and to share Him with others without fear of being arrested and/or killed for our faith. Be very thankful for that, because there is a day coming that those freedoms will be taken away from us. Use those freedoms liberally. I am thankful that some of our leaders are Christian and are trying to keep us a Christian nation. We must keep praying for our country. We must pray for our leaders, even those we do not agree with because that is what God tells us to do.
Thanksgiving is not a day it is a lifestyle. We should be thankful daily. Giving God the praise for all He has done, all He is doing and all that He will do in our lives. We should be thankful for the good in our lives and when the bad does come, praise God anyway. The Bible tells us that “God inhabits the praise of His people.” (Psalm 22:3 KJV) Every Bible translation is a little bit different but essentially it means that God dwells, sits or remains upon the praises of His people. That when we praise Him, He is here among us. So, when we praise God in the worst of times, God is there with us. The apostles Peter and Paul put that into practice when jailed by their enemies and God delivered them. Both were freed from prison after a good praise service behind bars.
Jesus gave thanks often. When He fed the 5000. When He raised Lazarus from the dead. And the night before He was arrested, He gave thanks for His followers, then and in the future.
Should we do any less?
Father God, I praise You for all that You have given me. I thank you for the lessons learned in hard times and those learned in the good times. Help me to always be thankful. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Food for thought
- What are you thankful for?
- Can you praise God in the worst of times? How?
- Do you practice praise and thanksgiving daily? Why or why not?
- What can you do to keep praise and thanksgiving a part of your daily life?
