We are a week from Thanksgiving Day 2008. There is an ominous cloud hanging over this year's celebration. Many have never known such a time. Before our very eyes fortunes are fading, retirement savings are disappearing, huge corporations are folding or screaming for help, the government (which is us) is being asked to bail them out with our money which many no longer have. But it just isn't us. Things are happening around the world to economies. A bubble has burst and we just don't know how big a bubble it is. What is there to be thankful for in 2008?
Let me pose this question. What was there to be thankful for when the FIRST one was celebrated? Most of those who had come to America on the Mayflower had died the very first winter. The weather had been harsh. Times were incredibly hard, but as they saw a ray of hope those Pilgrims, who were not used to luxuries anyway, found it possible to express thanks to the Heavenly Father.
If you have nothing or little to be thankful for you are to be pitied. Life itself is a blessing of God. The beauty of the earth and sky and universe are to be shared by all. Water is our life sustainer and it still flows. Living Water is available from the Water of Life. God is still around and looking in on all events. He may have seen a need for purging us and helping us focus on that which is more important. God sometimes has a more dramatic way to get our attention than people do, be they preachers or politicians.
Be thankful! Seek God in all His goodness and mercy. Listen to hear what He is seeking to tell us. Keep looking up. Be thankful!
