If you're like me, you're anxiously awaiting tomorrow (Thanksgiving Day) to share good food, laughs, and fun with loved ones and friends. Often during this time, we begin to think of the things that we are or should be grateful for. The fact that the name of the holiday is "Thanksgiving" points our hearts and minds towards a state of gratitude. While there is always a good time to be grateful, we often don't practice thankfulness enough if we are honest. I am guilty of it myself! Staying in a constant state of thankfulness can be challenging when life can throw so many "curve balls" to shift our focus.
Psalm 92:1-2 says, "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name....to declare your loving kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night." This Scripture is so interesting because it mentions that giving thanks is good for us, and also mentions doing it in the morning and every night. I presume that this is profitable to us because giving thanks in the morning sets our perspective BEFORE any challenges of the day come, and giving thanks at night reminds us of what God is doing or has done for us AFTER the challenges have come. Either way, remaining in a state of thankfulness keeps us from focusing on our challenges and shifts our perspectives to the One who has kept us through those challenges.
It's amazing how quickly thanksgiving shifts perspective. Once you begin to list the things you have to be thankful for, you will quickly find that you have wayyy more things to be thankful for than things to complain about. And the things that we are thankful for are quite possibly things that we once complained about! Thankfulness allows us to see that no matter what we face in life, things always work out the way they are supposed to and if we trust God, He has a habit of working them out wayyy better than we could have imagined.
I want to challenge you (and myself) to develop a habit of being thankful. Not just tomorrow as we gather with family and friends for food and fellowship. But when we wake up the day after, or the week after, when we are on our way to work, when we are facing difficult circumstances. In everything. Because we have far more to be thankful for-all it takes is shifting our gaze to focus on what we have instead of what we wish that we had:)