These few weeks have been filled with lessons about being thankful. No surprise because it’s close to Thanksgiving and that tends to be a theme in general. But living a life of thanksgiving each and every moment is definitely hard. I learned this by teaching my small group of youth and realizing that I’m not doing the things that I say I’m doing. Living a life of giving constant thanks, but instead feeling so busy that I barely have time to stop and reflect on things. Well, at least this morning, I woke up and had a chance to read His Word again and to try and understand and reflect on it.
My life has been such a blessing. One of the major reasons is because my life is rooted in Him. I don’t know what my life would be like without Christ today, all I can say is that it probably would be drastically different. No church involvement, possibly not married, not serving the body, not having a greater joy in my heart. It is quite dismal looking, in fact. But would I know it? Probably not, only my God can open my eyes and give me the understanding that I needed to see Him and there’s no turning back after that point. How can I be so foolish/blind to NOT give praise to that every day? It seems like after 5 years of being a believer, I’m slowly starting to be in a comfort zone. The feeling kind of sucks actually. I wish it would just go away, but I think there’s a reason why I’m in it.
In my reading today, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, He says He will not leave us as orphans and will come back and that the HS is a constant reminder of Him and how He lives in us. Well, sometimes it does feel like I’m alone, or I’m losing hope. But I guess that’s part of the race and part of the reason why it’s so hard to be a believer. It definitely takes perseverance and a hanging on that seems almost unreal. But I guess this kind of goes hand in hand with having a thankful heart. If I did that more, I believe it would have a drastic change in my outlook on life and my thoughts. How much more different would it be if we DID give thanks every minute of every day? It might seem tiring at first, almost a fruitless effort. But I believe a person filled with thanks will be drastically different than a person not filled with thanks. But at least, that thanks must come from somewhere, it must be real, genuine, has a source, has a person to thank. And that source is Jesus, the neverending source of thanks. May I continue to remember this as I go throughout my day, having a heart of thanks. Maybe I’ll forget as easily as the holiday passes us by, but hopefully the HS will guide my steps and thoughts into thinking something more valuable than my regular “thoughts of the day.”
