Thanksgiving 2016

For years I have been focused on Thanksgiving being about the good things that happen in my life. That is true, we should be thankful for those good things when we are blessed by God. I have founded it harder and wiser to also be thankful when things do not go my way. This is a favorite passage of one of my daughters. I was always surprised by her attraction to it. I heard a sermon podcast on it this past Monday about this passage. "I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places." (Hab. 3:16-19 ESV) God is good. Sometimes in his drawing me nigh to himself, it means my body trembles from fear. Sometimes it means I anticipate trouble. Sometimes it means what is normal function of provision is absent. Still God is my strength. The Pilgrims in the Plymouth colony thanked God for his hand of providence, although by modern standards many things looked grim. Years before, the Huguenots at the first Thanksgiving in Florida thanked God for his goodness. This was not a study in successful ventures, yet thankfulness was their response to the blessing of God. "I will rejoice in the LORD." I am thankful for those things that feel like blessings, but I am also thankful for those things that do not feel like blessings but draws me nigh to my maker and creator. His hand of providence is where we find goodness. "I will rejoice in the LORD".

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