Devotions
This is Thanksgiving week. It is a time to pause and give thanks for all that God has done for us. There are two ways to do this, we can approach Thanksgiving Day as a matter of routine, tick the box at the end of the day, and wait to do it all over again in 2024, or we can approach Thanksgiving Day more consciously than ever before. We truly are blessed!
Someone shared a story about a woman named Pam once worked in downtown Chicago. Every day on her way to work she encountered a heavy-set, middle-aged woman in a shabby coat, soliciting spare change in front of an old brick church. She greeted everyone with a smile and a pleasant, “Good morning!” Pam almost always gave this woman some change. After almost a year of this routine, the woman in the shabby coat disappeared. Pam wondered what had happened to her.
As we come to the close of yet another year, let us take a moment to pause, slow down and reflect on the year we have had. Perhaps there were times this year when life was a struggle, when suffering seemed too much to bear, and confusion overwhelmed you; times when “being grateful” seems to make no sense. But God’s word says, give thanks (anyway), for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Thank you God for the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, the earth with its rich vegetation, the deep mysterious forests, the majestic blue ocean, the lakes and rivers teeming with sea-life, the birds of the air, and the vast array of animals of every size and color. Who are we that you care for us?
