“Let your roots grow down into Him,
and let your lives be built on Him.
Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught,
and you will overflow with thankfulness.
Colossians 2:7
What are you thankful for today?
Category: Thankful Thursday
Thankful Thursday – Good Medicine
“A merry heart does good like a medicine…”
Proverbs 17:22
Today, and every day, but especially in the middle of this mess, I’m so thankful God’s given us a sense of humor to lighten our hearts, change our countenance, bring us together, and remind us there is still joy.
What God revealed to Solomon when he wrote the proverb, modern medical science now understands.
Laughter causes us to take in more oxygen, stimulates our organs, improves the function of blood vessels, and increases the endorphins released by our brain. It stimulates circulation and relaxes the muscles.
It can help fight stress, relieve tension and pain, and lift depression.
And yeah, it can burn calories. It might not be a lot, but I’ll take it.
Thankful Thursday – Mercy
“Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”
1 Chronicles 16:34
There is so much going on in the world right now that our minds can get pulled into a million different pits, so I thought it was important to start Thankful Thursday again.
I don’t have to tell you how despairing and overwhelming the state of this world is in right now.
But God’s mercy endures, now and forever, and when we remember that, and give Him thanks, we will have hope.
The words of David recorded in 1 Chronicles were part of a psalm spoken when the ark of the covenant was returned after battle to its rightful place in the tabernacle. God’s glory had been restored among His people.
Today we’re facing another kind of spiritual battle, and the enemy is doing all he can to hijack the glory of God from this world.
But God’s glory now lives inside His people. We are His tabernacle.
And we know that “All the promises of God in {Christ} are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20
In Him we have His immeasurable love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.
In Him we know He will lead us, give us wisdom, and provide for us.
In Him we know our eternity is with Him.
This life is short, and one day, when this battle is over, all wickedness will disappear, and His glory will reign forever more, where we will live in eternal peace and safety and love.
So, wherever your thoughts have roamed to today, let’s focus them back on our merciful Heavenly Father, who already has the victory (and so do we!), and give Him thanks.
What are you thankful for today?
Thankful Thursday – Pie
Isolation can give us a lot of time to think, and sometimes there’s nothing more dangerous than being inside our own heads.
We can start looking around, comparing our situation, our lives, to others and feel like we’re coming up short. Our piece of the pie seems like a sliver, and other’s a whopping piece with ice cream, or whipped cream, or both, slathered all over it.
And the truth is, we all have things in our lives we wish were different.
There is much that others enjoy as a given part of life that I will never know.
At the beginning of Psalm 73, Asaph ponders the prosperity of those who are wicked. Though they live foolishly, they enjoy good health, they have no troubles, they aren’t plagued by common human burdens (he thinks).
And here he was, he thought, keeping his heart pure and his hands innocent, and yet every day brings a fresh round of pain and affliction.
Until, he says, he entered the sanctuary of God.
We he got his focus off himself and onto God, then he understood the final destiny of the wicked. Ultimately, all they had gained will come to absolutely nothing when they face God at the final judgment.
And finally Asaph writes, “My flesh and my heart may fail…”
There is much discussion about what Asaph meant by this. Did he mean his flesh and heart failed him when he fell into bitterness and envy of others? Or did he mean that eventually his flesh and heart will fail when he dies and moves on from this life? Maybe both.
“… but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
Asaph is finally able to take a wide and godly perspective and realize that because he has God in his life, he doesn’t have just a sliver of pie, or even a big piece. He actually has the whole pie.
Yes, his own heart may fail, but God is His strength, and His portion, his inheritance, in this life and in the next.
Forever.
Yes, I may have missed out on a lot in this life, and maybe that’s a good thing because it showed me how much I needed God.
But God (Elohiym – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is my portion. And when everything in this life is gone, I will still have my Portion. I will have my relationship with God through Christ, and the faith and character and everything else He’s built on that Foundation through the many years I’ve walked with Him.
And it will last forever.
So the reality is, I haven’t missed out on one bit. I have God and all He is! And if you know Jesus, so do you. We have the Creator of the universe, our heavenly Father, the keeper of our souls and the One is able to make all grace abound toward us and bless us abundantly, our Lord and Savior and Friend and Brother and Co-Heir in the faith, Jesus, and our Comforter and Peace Giver, the One who seals us for eternal life, the Holy Spirit.
We can never come to the end of the list of His blessings. And anything we missed in this life that He deems important He will more than make up for in the next.
So instead of focusing inward or outward, let’s look up. We have more pie than we could ever eat.