A Thought for Thanksgiving Day

A Habit of Praise
A Thanksgiving Day thought from Savanna Kaiser

First of all, I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I also want to thank Alexis for inviting me to stop by today. I know you’re all probably busy with family festivities, so I’ll keep this short.

I’ve been reading lately the Sermons on the Miracles by Charles Spurgeon. Every book of his I’ve ever read has blessed me in countless ways and this one is no exception.

The recent chapter I read covered the miracle of Jesus where He healed the 10 lepers and only one returned to thank and praise Him. “Where are the nine?” Jesus asked the healed and humbled one at his feet, but the Samaritan man had no answer for him. He was too busy worshiping the true Physician.

I loved the picture of this meager man made whole. His heart overflowed with gratitude and his simple actions left a legacy for all of us to mirror. If only worship – and less of the world – filled more of our hearts.

Spurgeon writes, “The Lord gives us blessings, new every morning, and fresh every evening, great is His faithfulness; and yet we let the years roll round, and seldom observe a day of praise. Sad is it to see God all goodness and man all ingratitude!”

Today is Thanksgiving and it’s a wonderful time to thank the Lord for His many mercies, but too often I’ve been guilty of letting gratitude slip away all too quickly. Jesus deserves so much more.

Spurgeon adds, “Most of us pray more than we praise…Prayer is not so heavenly an exercise as praise: prayer is for a time, but praise is for eternity.”

I’m so thankful Jesus invites us to come to Him at all times. After studying this miracle in Luke 17, I realized just how important it is for me to come to Him, not just in times of need, but in times of praise. I want it to be a habit of my life. He deserves more praise than I could ever give, but I want to chase after it all the same.

Spurgeon continues, “From the healed leper, we see his humility. “This man fell down at Jesus’ feet; he did not feel perfectly in his place until he was lying there. ‘I am nobody, Lord,’ he seemed to say, and therefore he fell on his face… There is no place so honorable as down at the feet of Jesus. Ah, to lie there always, and just love him wholly, and let self die out! Oh, to have Christ standing over you as the one figure overshadowing your life henceforth and for ever! True thankfulness lies low before the Lord. Added to this there was worship. He fell down at Jesus’ feet, glorifying God, and giving thanks unto him. Let us worship our Savior. We shall never cease to adore him who has delivered us from the leprosy of sin.”

That’s what I want my life to be about. Something my Mom and I do to seek this continual spirit of thankfulness is by writing down notes of blessing throughout the year. We get together close to Thanksgiving Day and read our notes aloud. We’re blessed all over again to see the Lord’s hand in every area of our lives. Memories we cherished and moments we forgot are all recorded on sticky notes. Laughter and tears usually follow.

We look forward to this every year. It never ceases to amaze me of the variety and creativity of answered prayers and God’s many surprises. I encourage you today – and every day – to watch for God’s delights and tokens of His grace. Praying He opens our eyes to see more of Jesus at work in our lives. He’s always there, friends. Sovereign and strong.

Allow me to conclude my thoughts with this quote from the great Charles Spurgeon:

“Let us learn from all this to put praise in a high place. 
Let us hold praise-meetings…Let us pay our praise to Christ himself. 
Personal praise to a personal Savior must be our life’s object.”

Wishing you all a life of Thanksgiving!

~*~
Author bio: 

Savanna Kaiser is a freelance writer of over 50 magazine articles, web designer, blogger, and gardener from the Missouri Ozarks. 

She also serves as the president for her local ACFW group. 

When she and her husband aren't chasing their one-year-old daughter around, they love to hike, kayak, and explore Civil War battlefields. 

Connect with Savanna:
Website ~ Blog ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram

A Devotional for Thanksgiving Day

In EVERY Thing
A Thanksgiving Day devotional written by Becky Melby

Your mother-in-law will be here in two hours with her green Jell-O with cottage cheese in it. The four-year-old has the sniffles and the baby woke three times during the night—which is why you overslept and just put the turkey in. The kitchen floor is sticky, the windows are smudged, and you’d hoped to paint the guest room before Thanksgiving. The pumpkin pies are crispy on top because your teenaged daughter had her earphones in when the timer went off. The tablecloth needs ironing so you ask her to do it. Now the corner of the cloth is scorched. Needing a break, you check Facebook and read a scathing remark from your sister. While you were fighting with the giblets in the half-frozen turkey, your husband sucked up too many Legos with the vacuum cleaner and the belt broke. Now the house smells like burnt pies, tablecloth, and rubber and—help!—the breakfast the four-year-old just threw up. 

Time to cancel Thanksgiving. The last thing in the world you want to do is give thanks. Or host a dinner. If only you could push a magic button and transport yourself back to a simpler time.

Let’s push that button. You’re now living in a tiny house in an idyllic seaside town. The air is crisp and clean. The nights are starlit and quiet. You’re living green here—your husband and a few of the neighbor men built your one-room house using only things found in nature. Your home is heated by a fire in the hearth, which is also where you do your cooking. And today there will be a lot of cooking. Because today is a feast day. The whole town is gathering to celebrate the harvest. You glance at the bounty on the rough-hewn table. Potatoes, pumpkins, onions. Cooking on a spit over the fire is the pheasant you plucked before dawn. Life is simple. Life is good. Your heart is full. There is so much to thank God for. You have a roof over your head. Food on the table. Friends. Family . . .

In a place like this you could give thanks, right? No distracting electronics, no malfunctioning appliances. No daughter texting. No green Jell-O.

Here, your heart is full to overflowing with gratitude—to the God who protected you and your husband and daughter through the long, bitter winter and brought new friends who taught you how to survive in this new place. You give thanks to Almighty God for being your comfort on the arduous journey that brought you here and for His Presence when the baby died on the ship and when you buried your four-year-old in the frozen ground. You are grateful for your widowed mother-in-law who lives with you, grateful for the company of another woman. Life is hard, but this you know—God is good. Your daughter is doing her needlework. You pull your shawl closer, pick up the stump of a candle, and walk across the dirt floor to read the verses she’s stitching: Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing; In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

And once again—in spite of grief, in spite of the wind that whispers of another hard winter, in spite of fear—you rejoice and give thanks for today’s provision and the hope of heaven tomorrow.

The comparison is sobering, isn’t it? I’m sure there were Pilgrims who whined and complained, but I wonder how many of us, people who moan and groan at mere inconveniences, would choose to mark the end of a year of hardship and loss by giving thanks. That first feast was not held because of tradition or family obligation, but a genuine desire to rejoice and give thanks to God for salvation and provision.

Thanks-giving is a choice, isn’t it? A way of looking at life that has little to do with our circumstances. Life is far from perfect, yet still we can choose to remember God is good. We can choose thanks-giving.

Lord, today we choose to remember your goodness. Today, with your help, we choose gratitude over grumbling.

~*~
Author bio:

Burlington, Wisconsin author Becky Melby writes Contemporary Christian Fiction. Do You Know What I Know? is her sixteenth book. 

Married for 44 years, mother of four, grandmother to fifteen, Becky thrives on writing, reading, camping, rides on the back of a silver Gold Wing, and time with family. 

Connect with her online at these sites, www.beckymelby.com or Facebook.

Thankful Thursday: Thanksgiving Day 2014 edition

Top 10 Things I'm Thankful for today:

1) Peace in my heart

2) God's Love

3) Quality time with family

4) Holiday greetings from friends

5) Delicious Thanksgiving dinner

6) Sweet potato pie (my grandma's recipe is the BEST)

7) My favorite famous musicians 

8) The Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)

9) My Best Friend for Life (Jesus Christ)

10) ALL of God's blessings! 

What are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday: Family Matters

It's Thursday and I'm thankful to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with loved ones because family matters!

Here in America we celebrate Thanksgiving every November, this year it was celebrated today, Nov. 28. We're known for gathering with family around a feast laden table usually filled with turkey, cranberry sauce, collard greens or green bean casserole, corn on the cob, potato salad, fresh dinner rolls of bread with butter and the list goes on! 

Sitting around the dining room table at my grandma's house today I found myself being thankful for the blessing of family and for God keeping us through another year to celebrate thanksgiving together. Some people, my grandma said today, don't even have family to celebrate Thanksgiving with so she's grateful that she has us. Awe, how sweet!

Now pumpkin pie is considered the classic American Thanksgiving dinner dessert but that's not how we do it, we have my grandma's famous sweet potato pie--so smooth and savory that you wish you had an entire pie, not just one slice, to yourself! Yes, it is that good!

My aunt surprised me this Thanksgiving with a red velvet cake with vanilla icing which she baked especially for me because it's one of my favorite desserts and my aunt can bake like the best professionals around so I'm always grateful when I get to taste food she made. I love surprises that have a lot of thought and heart behind them and that is what my aunt did for me today!

Whether you live in America and celebrate Thanksgiving Day or not, I hope you will find time today to be quiet and think about what you're thankful for in life.

May God bless you today, tomorrow and always!