11/23/2021 – Happy Thanksgiving – Give Thanks!

Sometimes we are thankful for the blessings God has bestowed on us - rightfully so!  Sometimes we are thankful for family, health, prosperity, good will - rightfully so! 

However, if we are honest, there are many times where we struggle to see "blessed" as a descriptor of our life.  Bills mount, health fails, uncertainty, political chaos, instability, inflation, tension, conflict -- sometimes it feels like we are drowning in "depressed" instead of "blessed."

Hold on! There is hope!  One certain, unchanging place where we can express deep thankfulness is in the goodness of God.  He weaves a beautiful tapestry and He has a birds' eye view of the top side of that tapestry.  We cannot see what He sees.  Hebrews 11:1 expresses it this way: "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."  We do not have to see the goodness of God to be assured of it.

This Thanksgiving season, let me encourage you to be thankful for some very specific things - by faith:

• Our country and the foundations upon which it has been built. 
• Those who have fought and even died to protect our freedom.
• God's free gift of grace which we can access through faith in His son, Jesus Christ.
• The Holy Spirit who empowers believers with the same life-giving power that raised Jesus from the dead.
• Whatever else you recognize as coming from the loving hand of God in your life.