O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
for His steadfast love endures forever
(Psalm 136:1).
September is one of the busiest months of the year for me. I think only December exceeds it. And somehow I always seem unprepared and overwhelmed by the switch from mellow, laidback summer to “pedal-to-the-metal.”
I often find myself feeling over-committed, over-stressed and over-concerned. Usually, within a few weeks, my slow moving mind remembers that I cannot survive now, or at any other time, on my own strength and resources.
So again this year I know I am not trusting enough and not listening enough to that quiet, small voice that we can discern if we take the time to listen. And for me it is not just enough to listen; it is a further requirement that I act on what I hear.
What has this to do with Thanksgiving? For me there is a process of being reminded that I am not without great help and extraordinary resources in Christ. It reminds me that I am loved beyond my understanding and beyond the limits of time and space.
When I rehearse in my mind and heart, clearly at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, all that I have in Christ and how much I am loved, that gratitude begins to bubble up. Supernaturally the gratitude begins to replace the stress and refocuses me on a better set of priorities and a more effective action plan.
Gratitude is a pathway to living more in line with the “abundant life” promised by Jesus. Gratitude is also the doorway to more authentic worship.
So, as you consider Thanksgiving this year, may you take the time to consider how absolutely life-changing and redemptive the love of God in Christ is for we who follow him.
May we cry out with the psalmist our thanks to the God who is good and whose love endures forever. May it open wellsprings of worship within our hearts.
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37).
