What Prompts Your Thankfulness Today?
Good Morning Friends,
Happy Thanksgiving! Today we first touch on a bit of the history of Thanksgiving and then dive into what happens when we are thankful. For my history, I was born on Thanksgiving. My wife and children are all related to multiple passengers on the Mayflower and as such partners to the forming of our nation in the design of the Mayflower compact. But now we are in Florida and realize that the first Thanksgiving with the Indians was most likely closer to St. Augustine Florida than Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, regardless of the where and when of its origin, Thanksgiving is a time to rejoice in the superabundant provision of God that overflows in nature and in our lives. Lincoln put it well in the Proclamation that established the national holiday. You see, I hope, that when God becomes the spiritual and physical center piece of our lives then we can build memories of thanksgiving linked to the foundation and formation of our personal history as well as national one. If we recognize our roots and select them and let it spill over and be helpers of the joy and love in others we will be drinking deep of the promise of the living water. It is the acknowledgement of a history of joy that produces an inner strength… a strength we find when our children walk in truth or our prayers are answered, a joy of the scriptures when they speak to us personally, a joy in faithful service, a joy when we know our heart is right with the Lord, or feel His presence. And day after day we give thanks to this product of the Spirit because the water of eternal life overflows in our joy. As C.S. Lewis says, “The very nature of joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting.” For joy is found in sharing our joy and then multiplying it in others. Joy is received in the giving and the greatest of all joy is in seeing a friend’s life changed. Friends resolve to be joyous, choosing joy each day. I hope you get the connection here. So, let your joy show through when you tell your story, when you smile, when you sing, for the God that shines through you. I hope today that you better appreciate what God has done and how God has done it. What Prompts Your Thankfulness Today?
Scripture: Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10 (NRSV)
You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 12:1-6 (NRSV)
Message: We explore in today’s scripture and devotional our joy and history as Christians and how we magnify joy in our daily walk. Imagine for a moment not being allowed to worship collectively for 70 years. It is into that setting that our scripture from Nehemiah is birthed. Nehemiah is surprised by the joy of reading scripture again and cries for joy. Nehemiah, with his new found freedom then set out to use himself in service to the community of faithful fueled by this joy…seeking to do good and continue the cycle of joy. It is in this release from captivity we learn an excellent example of why we need to be joyous in life’s detours, how our strength is the joy of the Lord, not an experience or circumstance, but an inward disposition of the heart that we must choose, pursue and maintain. When we are thankful we too are released in a way that prompts us to sing. In the scripture from Isaiah we see the insertion of a song of Thanksgiving after the prophecy of the return of the exiles and a series of messianic pictures in Isaiah 11. The key to the chapter is the verse, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” This passage is witness to the whistle being put back in our work, a song of joy into the common tasks of daily living, a new understanding of the dignity and value of our labor when our labor is for the Lord. This outburst of thanksgiving in Isaiah is witnesses that with our pride wiped away we can give thanks for our joy and that in our thanksgiving more joy is manifested. Let the joy in you be a witness of a changed life instilled with the strength of the Lord. I get a sense of it when I read the Proclamation of Lincoln that established today’s holiday. It is attached at the end of this devotional.
Pray that giving thanks for our very diverse roots unites us. Pray we today and each day in all things with thanksgiving make our wants known to God. Pray we be filled with joy in the Spirit that washes away false desires.
Pray that our thanksgiving be universal our prayers unceasing. Pray that we have an overflowing joy that spills over into the lives of others. Pray that we trust in God and in the midst of everything, focus on His goodness toward us in Christ. Pray that we become complete, mature and not lacking in anything…strengthened in faith and overflowing with encouragement. Pray that we give thanks before the Lord in love of the simple things of life.
Pray we have a commitment to thanksgiving. Pray we not reject joy in our own lives or the lives of others so that we might in greater unity be more thankful.
Blessings,
John Lawson
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity … needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. … “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. …”I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”
Oct. 3, 1863 Abraham Lincoln, President
Daily Devotionals 