I Am Thankful For Everything

Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year, yes maybe even better than Christmas. Don't get me wrong Christmas is a wonderful day and the holiday season is really all about Jesus. But we have twisted and turned and made Christmas about us, so things get a little tense sometimes. Thanksgiving is most certainly about Jesus as well, I am truly thankful to God for everything that he has allowed into my life. My relationship with Him, my wife, my children, and my grandchildren. My mom, (is special, I have always been thankful for both of my parents), and the influence that my dad has had on my life, (I miss him now that he is gone, even though I see traces of him when I look at myself in the mirror), my brother and sisters and there families, I am thankful for a good church, and wonderful friends. Too many things to mention.

I think too often I have not always been thankful for the hard times, the times when I have felt most alone or a time of deepest need. If I trust God, and am thankful for the good times can I somehow separate Him from the difficult times? I do not consider myself old, I am middle aged I guess, but I wish that I would have known how to be thankful in hard times back when I was younger. Every difficult period of my life has afforded me a very special opportunity; to draw closer to the Lord. I did not know that difficult times were so precious and rare. I am drawn into a private place with Jesus and He shuts the door and helps me understand things. Things about myself and things about others that I need to understand and ways that I need to change. Sometimes our visits together take weeks and months, sometimes years. In the end, always precious and humbling.

Black Friday (tomorrow) is the day that some shoppers wait for all season to get the best deals, some will stand in line in cold weather just to be the first in the door. I am not one of those, although I do love a good deal. No one stands in line for a chance at difficulty or trial; things like loneliness, or betrayal, poverty or unemployment, but the benefits and rewards are eternal. But we must be willing for the Lord to change us and be willing to change. If I am not moving forward, after awhile I will be moving backward.

The Bible tells says; Don't think it is strange when a trial comes your way. In another place we are told that all of this difficulty works patience in us, patience works experience, and experience gives us hope. Hope is what I am truly thankful for. I am glad for every trial, and every experience that I have had in my walk with God, but I am very very thankful for the hope they have worked in me. I have a hope of eternity with Jesus. You know being a Christian is not about being blessed here because of Jesus. Being a Christian is about waking up, to the hope of eternity with the Lord. Blessings here are wonderful, but eternity will be much, much, much, better than that.

I say with John in Revelation, Even so come quickly Lord Jesus.