Friday, November 26, 2010

Not Just Another Thanksgiving

I was thinking this morning about this day we call Thanksgiving. I was thinking about how I don't want to get lost in just going with the traditions... eating turkey, being with family, having fun, and miss the purpose of Thanksgiving. This thanksgiving, my focus of thanks has been mostly centered around the people God has placed in my life to "strengthen my hand in God" as Jonathan did for David.

God has given many abundant blessings... actually, life being one of those. Having had a somewhat close call with a punctured lung a few weeks ago was a reminder of just how frail my life is. The Lord's faithfulness has been so real this last year... seeing Him provide everything plus some for the mission trip to Mexico... seeing how He protected there and caused everything to run smoothly... seeing how He took me out of the job that I was kind of stuck in and moved me to a more long-term (Lord willing) job... seeing how He prepared me for the challenges of this new job... seeing how He has provided for our family's needs on a day by day basis... etc. There have been countless more ways that God has been faithful to me over this last year... in fact, God defines faithfulness. Anything that He does is faithful. It is impossible for Him to be unfaithful... even when I am completely unfaithful.

I was thinking this evening about how important thankfulness is. I did a search earlier today and read more from it on BibleGateway... I was just searching for the word, "thanks". I didn't get as far as I would have liked, but the concept of giving thanks is absolutely central to our daily life. Something I hadn't noted before is that they actually had people set up specifically for the purpose of giving thanks to God. How cool would that be? "What do you do for work?"... "Oh, I give God thanks." Okay, now I have be honest and admit that I didn't study it to the point of knowing how much time they spent doing this, but it was important enough to set specific people in charge of giving thanks to God. If it was that important to them, it ought to be just as important to me. My life ought to be centered around Him... and as it's centered around Him... seeing His continual faithfulness, it ought to overflow with giving of thanks for His unending faithfulness and love.

One of His acts of faithfulness to me is bringing many godly people into my life to "strengthen my hand in God". To those that have made such efforts, I cannot tell you how much it means to me. Thank you.

God, I am so thankful for Your unending faithfulness, yet, I am not nearly as thankful as I want to be. Would You, by Your grace, give me a heart of thankfulness. Do not allow me to credit myself with the blessings that You pour out so continually. It is not because of my faithfulness that Your bless, but truly, only because of the righteousness of Christ on my behalf. So, help me not lose sight of that. Help me never to grow weary of giving thanks to You. May it not be just another act of lip-service, but an accurate reflection of my heart. Help me be more thankful. Help me love You more. Thank You for the cross.

1 comment:

Kyle said...

It's great how holidays often remind us of our relationship with God, and how we should pursue Him and His plans for us. =)