The Greatest Blessing

THIS WEEK was Thanksgiving, the day we devote to remembering to be thankful for the mounds of blessings heaped up on our lives. I got to spend it with my family, and nobody was missing when we ate together.

I'm glad we have this holiday in America, because gratitude is one of the most important things to maintain and yet one of the easiest to dismiss. When we aren't thankful, our problems seem a lot bigger because we aren't thinking about how good we have it.

Please watch this video I saw on Godvine.com a couple weeks ago. I saved it to show it to you this week, because it made me thankful for everything I have no matter how bad a day I was having.



That sure makes our problems look smaller. What's amazing is that this man was thankful for everything even, and especially, when it looked like he was about to lose it all. That was because he saw that he was about to gain it all when he came to stand before God. He passed away in May of 2010.

What are you thankful for? Nothing is too big or small to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for my family. My talented and wonderfully understanding mom, my dad who is the perfect balance of responsible and fun, my clever and beautiful sister, and my funny and brilliant brother. I am thankful for days when I get to be with them and do anything, or nothing, and see my yellow house with flowers and citrus trees.

I'm thankful for not one Bible, but two, in a world where so many Christians struggle to get their hands on one. In many countries it is dangerous to carry them to give to other people. I'm thankful that I get to go to church in the same place every week, without fear of being punished or pressured because of it.

I'm thankful for my friends at school, for my life group, and for my awesome room mate. I'm thankful for the chance to study what I love in a university, and to go outside every day and see the things God made.

Psalm 100 is my Thanksgiving Psalm that I love to read this time of year.

v.3-4 "[3] Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. [4] Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and enter into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name."

This makes me realize that gratitude comes from the recognition of need. We are thankful to God because He provides for our needs. So let's not become ungrateful and think that we can make ourselves, and reach the heights beyond ourdreams without the strength of His wings.

In John 10:11 Jesus tells us how He relates to us: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."

We have so much to be thankful for. I hope we can practice gratitude as much during the year as we do in late November.

If we're thankful to God because He provides abundantly for our needs, and if He has provided most abundantly for our greatest need of salvation by giving Himself, then we should be most thankful to Him, for Him. He is our greatest blessing.

More than anything I am thankful to my Savior for saving me, and that He is close enough to hear. I love hearing Him remind me of promises like Jeremiah 29:11, as He did just a couple nights ago: "Fir I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thuoghts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." I'm thankful for His sovereignty in my life, even on days when it all looks like it's falling apart, because it isn't really.

Take a little while to think about what you're most thankful for, and stay thankful. You'll find that when we are thankful for our blessings and bless the Lord because of them, our gratitude blesses us even more.