For some it’s turkey time. For others, it’s football time. For many more, it’s either black Friday or cyber Monday time. For still others, it’s endure the extended family time. It seems like the number of people for whom it’s thanksgiving time gets smaller every year.
But we have so much to be thankful for, I don’t see how we can possibly fit it all into one meal or one day. In fact, thankfulness has been our theme all year. We are thankful for life, health, work, cars, homes, food, clothing, friends, the Bible, Jesus the Christ, the freedom to worship the Lord our God, and the list goes on. My heart aches when I realize that for many people thanksgiving has been reduced to a blessing for the over-indulgence of food on the table, and then they are done for the year. Just another small check box to mark off the list, and this is all the thanks they are willing to give. For some, even this amount is too much.
What does the Lord require of you? He wants you to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 in case you were wondering). We are also reminded in James 1:27 that pure and undefiled religion before God is to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. We should be thankful to do these things. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. If you are truly thankful for all of God’s blessings, then I challenge you to become a worker in God’s harvest. As an old t-shirt reminds me, “Faith is in many ways like a wheelbarrow. It takes a real push to get it moving.” Consider this reminder my thankful push.
Grace & Peace, Charles.