Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. It has been one of my favorite holidays since I can remember because of such wonderful memories - plus it's one of those holidays that modern merchants have had a difficult time exploiting with commercialism. Well, except perhaps for the poultry producers but they don't have to advertise much since getting a turkey on the table is an American tradition since the time of the colonies! But ... sadly, we have had commercialization come into existence but not Thanksgiving per se - they've skipped Thanksgiving and started putting out Christmas flyers and bulletins and sales even before Halloween has happened. It's one big commercial for gifts until well AFTER Christmas. It's rather dismaying.

But I still give thanks. I thank God for a fairly sound body even though I'm almost 55 yrs old. I still can't grasp the thought that I'm becoming an old man. And it frightens me. I don't accept it very well at all. But I'm still thankful that after surviving 20 years of military life including spent in the Middle East deserts that I've survived and fairly thrived.

I thank God for my wife, my children and grandchildren as well as my brother and two sisters. I'm thankful to have a job (even if I am about to lose it) and I'm thankful to be living in the truly freest nation on the earth.

But mosty I thank God for His son Jesus Christ, who came down to this earth as a helpless baby and became the sinless man and sacrifice for my sins - all of hunaity's sins.

I pray that anyone who reads this and believes that they stop can thank God for all that they (we) have in this world.

God bless and keep everyone that I know and don't know - close and in His heart.

Thanksgiving Month

November - the month of Thanksgiving. Someone on facebook brought up the suggestion that everyday we should post why we are thankful until Thanksgiving Day itself. But why stop there? The truth of the matter is, we should give thanks every day. I was humbled today when I realized that even though I believe in God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) I don't thank Him near enough - and yet it does not stop Him from loving me supremely, without reservation, without condemnation. That realization caused me to stop right in the middle of my workday to just thank Him for:
Being alive
For Him give me life
For loving me (and all humanity) so much that He would empty Himself, leave the throne of heaven and place Himself in the womb of a virgin, become flesh, grow up sinless, be sinless as an adult, fight Satan and evil to a degree unfathomable by an stretch of human imagination - and then die while enduring the tempations of Satan.
For being totally sinless yet becoming sin itself - carrying my sins on the cross of Calvary, on Golgotha, the Place of the Skull - and enduring the shame and horror of it all. But because He was sinless, He destroyed death and the grave and (if we're willing) to destroy the hold that sin has over each of us in our lives - and grant us eternal life.
For the RESURRECTION - without the resurrection, we humans have no hope. But there was a resurrection and so we do have hope: the greatest hope that we could possibly have, that no matter how bad things get in our lives we have hope and faith in GOD.

I have so much more to be thankful for - but that's for later.

"In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever - 'til my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river."