There is no doubt that all human beings go through troubles in this life, some quite severe. Add to that for us in Jesus the trials that go with seeking to be a true follower of Jesus in this life. There's little escape from all of that, and we don't do well unless we're willing to walk through them with God who has promised to be with us in Jesus as our Help always and to the end.
But thankfully there is much to enjoy in the journey of life. In this part of the world autumn is beginning to set in, and with that we will see the change of colors of the leaves, and hopefully some good Indian summer days to come. We enjoy the companionship of our spouses or close friends, as well. I think we especially enjoy all of this, when we realize that it is a gift, and not to be taken for granted. We often don't know what we have until we have to do without it. But we need to appreciate these gifts while we have them, and not only with longing reflection for them, when they are no more.
So hopefully by God's grace we can see the good from him all around us, and with each other. And we can enjoy this well, in a way that is pleasing to God and to us. I love the prospect of another warm day, knowing that Winter will all too soon be on us. But even then I want to find the good, God's beauty and provision in this wonderful world he has made, and in the good gifts he continually gives us, big and little, and nearly everywhere we turn, even in this world.
What would you like to add here?
Showing posts with label thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thanksgiving. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
looking back
It is good to look back and give thanks to the Lord, for all of his goodness to us in the past year. I believe in calendars, and increasingly in the church calendar. I think these help us keep on track; after all we are creatures of time and space.
Looking back on this past year I have seen some amazing breakthroughs, small and not so small in my life. We've seen the birth of our first grandchild, Morgan. God has provided for us. And God is giving us more and more the passion and resolve to put him first in both seeking and serving him.
God is good no matter what. In the end in Jesus this faith will be fully vindicated, even though we live with unresolved questions now. We need to simply remain true in living by faith as those dependent on God and interdependent on each other. As we seek to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father in heaven.
What about you? Is there anything you'd like to share about your past year, or any thoughts on these thoughts?
Looking back on this past year I have seen some amazing breakthroughs, small and not so small in my life. We've seen the birth of our first grandchild, Morgan. God has provided for us. And God is giving us more and more the passion and resolve to put him first in both seeking and serving him.
God is good no matter what. In the end in Jesus this faith will be fully vindicated, even though we live with unresolved questions now. We need to simply remain true in living by faith as those dependent on God and interdependent on each other. As we seek to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father in heaven.
What about you? Is there anything you'd like to share about your past year, or any thoughts on these thoughts?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
For us in the United States, it is Thanksgiving Day today. In Scripture one of God's indictments against humankind in our sin, is that we fail to give thanks to God. Scripture teaches us that every good gift ultimately comes from God, and that the problems of this life are traced back to the reality of a world that is fallen as well as awaiting the redemption and new creation to come in Jesus. To give thanks to God is most certainly an act of faith, and especially so in a world in which not all things are right or good.
Only in Jesus can we give thanks with the anticipation that God will make all wrongs right, and all things new and good in the end. And that by simple faith in Jesus, we can be a part and even facilitator of this new creation in Jesus beginning now. While we still richly enjoy all the gifts God has given us as part of this old creation. The best by far is yet to come, in Jesus!
I hope all those we know and love will end up being a part of that big celebration and life yet to come. That hand in hand, and heart to heart we will be together at that great celebration to come as we enter into a life we begin to have a glimmer and even experience of here and now in Jesus. A life which makes all the imitations we are so prone to wander toward and pursue in this life, pale in comparison. The end of the story helps us realize what we should be headed toward by simple faith in God through Jesus Christ.
What would you like to add to these thoughts?
Only in Jesus can we give thanks with the anticipation that God will make all wrongs right, and all things new and good in the end. And that by simple faith in Jesus, we can be a part and even facilitator of this new creation in Jesus beginning now. While we still richly enjoy all the gifts God has given us as part of this old creation. The best by far is yet to come, in Jesus!
I hope all those we know and love will end up being a part of that big celebration and life yet to come. That hand in hand, and heart to heart we will be together at that great celebration to come as we enter into a life we begin to have a glimmer and even experience of here and now in Jesus. A life which makes all the imitations we are so prone to wander toward and pursue in this life, pale in comparison. The end of the story helps us realize what we should be headed toward by simple faith in God through Jesus Christ.
What would you like to add to these thoughts?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
giving thanks
For some of us, thanksgiving is not something we just naturally do everyday. I believe the Lord is changing me in this regard. But it takes time. It's of the Spirit, but it's also something we're involved in as well, as with all, or at least certain kinds of workings of the Spirit. I recently was blessed in hearing a brother pray this week in our weekly start up meeting at work (we take our turns), who seems to pray in the Spirit and with thanksgiving marking all of his prayers. I'm sure God wants to use that to impact me and my practice of giving thanks.
Some of us face many challenges and disappointments or worse. I think of a friend who is struggling with cancer. Some of us have carried burdens or voices in our head from the past we've listened to far too long. Though we may be making progress, and in the Lord we should be, yet we just often don't have it in ourselves to be bubbling over to God with thanksgiving (and of course this is a work in us of God's grace). Actually it seems strange to me that I seem to have little trouble thanking people, but too much trouble thanking God. Something just doesn't add up there. Though God while personal is different for sure than others. We often ask in different ways, "If God is so great and so good, why this, this and that in this world, and this in my life?" Giving thanks ends up being a crucial part of learning to walk by faith in God and in God's promises in Jesus, and not by sight.
I think it's important to learn to give thanks for the little things, for all God's gifts, great and small. But to get some of us who are late bloomers going, maybe we need to dwell on those things which are bedrock truths for our life in God through Christ. We can get going in giving thanks to God consistently on such ground truths, and then from there begin to give thanks to God for everything, doing so in creative ways, as well. Like giving thanks to God for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus, in the sense of seeing or sensing or anticipating God's hand in all things for good, even in our trials.
I thank God for his great and good work of creation, new creation and redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that this great work most definitely includes me. And that I'm part of a wonderful community of brothers and sisters in Jesus locally in our church, at work, in the blogging community and worldwide. We are most wonderfully blessed to have Jesus and to have each other in Jesus.
I thank God for Scripture as God's word to which I turn daily. I thank God for his voice and the story of God we find in it, and in which we can find our place today. I thank God for the gospel of Christ by which I've been saved, and want to be an instrument of God's peace to others through this gospel, helping others come to a saving faith in our Lord Jesus.
I thank God for my wife, Deb, who is a wonderful help meet and my best friend. Also I thank God for our daughter, Tiffany, for her baby Morgan, and for her boyfriend Chris. God has made each one of these three so very special. I am thankful for them and look forward to seeing how their lives unfold in coming days and years.
I thank God for his great faithfulness in our lives. It is new every morning. And for the "Our Father" prayer we're to pray, as well as for the gift of prayer as we walk by faith and not by sight in this world.
I thank God for the hard times, even though I don't like trials in themselves. Yet through them God helps me to grow and become more like Jesus, as I press on through them with the Lord.
God is good. Far beyond our understanding and grasp of goodness. And God is great. We need to trust God to work that out in and even through our lives, and thank him daily for his work in and among us in Jesus. And we pray that God's work will go on in and among us out to a world that is in great need. And we anticipate God's good working in us to that end, in whatever form that takes, beginning with prayers. As we await the great day of thanksgiving when God makes all things new in Jesus.
What might you like to add to this note and post of giving thanks?
Linked from L.L. Barkat's post, A Bite of Pie and Thanks.
Some of us face many challenges and disappointments or worse. I think of a friend who is struggling with cancer. Some of us have carried burdens or voices in our head from the past we've listened to far too long. Though we may be making progress, and in the Lord we should be, yet we just often don't have it in ourselves to be bubbling over to God with thanksgiving (and of course this is a work in us of God's grace). Actually it seems strange to me that I seem to have little trouble thanking people, but too much trouble thanking God. Something just doesn't add up there. Though God while personal is different for sure than others. We often ask in different ways, "If God is so great and so good, why this, this and that in this world, and this in my life?" Giving thanks ends up being a crucial part of learning to walk by faith in God and in God's promises in Jesus, and not by sight.
I think it's important to learn to give thanks for the little things, for all God's gifts, great and small. But to get some of us who are late bloomers going, maybe we need to dwell on those things which are bedrock truths for our life in God through Christ. We can get going in giving thanks to God consistently on such ground truths, and then from there begin to give thanks to God for everything, doing so in creative ways, as well. Like giving thanks to God for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus, in the sense of seeing or sensing or anticipating God's hand in all things for good, even in our trials.
I thank God for his great and good work of creation, new creation and redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that this great work most definitely includes me. And that I'm part of a wonderful community of brothers and sisters in Jesus locally in our church, at work, in the blogging community and worldwide. We are most wonderfully blessed to have Jesus and to have each other in Jesus.
I thank God for Scripture as God's word to which I turn daily. I thank God for his voice and the story of God we find in it, and in which we can find our place today. I thank God for the gospel of Christ by which I've been saved, and want to be an instrument of God's peace to others through this gospel, helping others come to a saving faith in our Lord Jesus.
I thank God for my wife, Deb, who is a wonderful help meet and my best friend. Also I thank God for our daughter, Tiffany, for her baby Morgan, and for her boyfriend Chris. God has made each one of these three so very special. I am thankful for them and look forward to seeing how their lives unfold in coming days and years.
I thank God for his great faithfulness in our lives. It is new every morning. And for the "Our Father" prayer we're to pray, as well as for the gift of prayer as we walk by faith and not by sight in this world.
I thank God for the hard times, even though I don't like trials in themselves. Yet through them God helps me to grow and become more like Jesus, as I press on through them with the Lord.
God is good. Far beyond our understanding and grasp of goodness. And God is great. We need to trust God to work that out in and even through our lives, and thank him daily for his work in and among us in Jesus. And we pray that God's work will go on in and among us out to a world that is in great need. And we anticipate God's good working in us to that end, in whatever form that takes, beginning with prayers. As we await the great day of thanksgiving when God makes all things new in Jesus.
What might you like to add to this note and post of giving thanks?
Linked from L.L. Barkat's post, A Bite of Pie and Thanks.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
"Olive Press - gratitude" from L.L. Barkat
from Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places
L.L., through a novel she read, is awakened to the unswerving love of the Savior, who takes her place, and really every one of our places, in the pit, to be executed for us, while we're set free. Now the words, "Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross, for paying the price for our sins," are more than just words, but uttered with a cry from her heart, a cry of love and true gratitude.
We're taken to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus along with the Father, and Satan are locked in a struggle over the fate of humankind. In L.L.'s scenario, something of which likely was playing out during those three times Jesus prayed, Satan is reminding Jesus of Scripture in which God sentences his people to their just and deserved punishment, as well as the passage that states that no ransom payed is ever enough for their souls. But Jesus knows better, and his compassion is moved to take the place they, and actually we deserve. Jesus takes the place of his beloved, and his beloved is then freed from death to real life.
Gratitude. Why is it so hard to be thankful? Why do we over time so easily drift into ingratitude? It can be a sense of entitlement, forgetting who we really were and are apart from grace, and where we came from. It can come from forgetting over time the sheer wonder of our salvation: how lost we were and what a difference Jesus made in our lives at the start- true in my case. Some of us may not know the exact time we had faith in Jesus, but we may remember times when Jesus and his salvation seemed much more real to us than it does now. And ingratitude can come from leaving our first love.
L.L. in reading the novel and thinking about her ingratitude, imagined all of her sinful thoughts against others inflicting injury on them, and then on herself. And then how Jesus comes and takes all that on himself. A wonderful and apt analogy, for sure.
I have to acknowledge that I can all too easily take our great salvation in Jesus for granted. Instead of dimming and losing sight of the wonder of God's grace in Jesus, we ought to be growing in our appreciation and awe over it. The further we go in God through Christ, the more we should see just how great this salvation really is, and what a truly loving and giving God, God is.
This chapter was a timely, good word for me. Part of God's will for us in Christ Jesus. And the "discussion questions" are challenging. This chapter stretched me, true really throughout the book. Easy to read superficially, but harder to read if you really grapple with what L.L. is saying.
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
8. Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion
9. Indiana Jones - fear
10. Old Stone Church - love
11. Goldworthy's Wall - sacrifice
12. Clefts of the Rock - responsibility
Next week: "Forest Star - humility"
L.L., through a novel she read, is awakened to the unswerving love of the Savior, who takes her place, and really every one of our places, in the pit, to be executed for us, while we're set free. Now the words, "Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross, for paying the price for our sins," are more than just words, but uttered with a cry from her heart, a cry of love and true gratitude.
We're taken to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus along with the Father, and Satan are locked in a struggle over the fate of humankind. In L.L.'s scenario, something of which likely was playing out during those three times Jesus prayed, Satan is reminding Jesus of Scripture in which God sentences his people to their just and deserved punishment, as well as the passage that states that no ransom payed is ever enough for their souls. But Jesus knows better, and his compassion is moved to take the place they, and actually we deserve. Jesus takes the place of his beloved, and his beloved is then freed from death to real life.
Gratitude. Why is it so hard to be thankful? Why do we over time so easily drift into ingratitude? It can be a sense of entitlement, forgetting who we really were and are apart from grace, and where we came from. It can come from forgetting over time the sheer wonder of our salvation: how lost we were and what a difference Jesus made in our lives at the start- true in my case. Some of us may not know the exact time we had faith in Jesus, but we may remember times when Jesus and his salvation seemed much more real to us than it does now. And ingratitude can come from leaving our first love.
L.L. in reading the novel and thinking about her ingratitude, imagined all of her sinful thoughts against others inflicting injury on them, and then on herself. And then how Jesus comes and takes all that on himself. A wonderful and apt analogy, for sure.
I have to acknowledge that I can all too easily take our great salvation in Jesus for granted. Instead of dimming and losing sight of the wonder of God's grace in Jesus, we ought to be growing in our appreciation and awe over it. The further we go in God through Christ, the more we should see just how great this salvation really is, and what a truly loving and giving God, God is.
This chapter was a timely, good word for me. Part of God's will for us in Christ Jesus. And the "discussion questions" are challenging. This chapter stretched me, true really throughout the book. Easy to read superficially, but harder to read if you really grapple with what L.L. is saying.
1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
8. Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion
9. Indiana Jones - fear
10. Old Stone Church - love
11. Goldworthy's Wall - sacrifice
12. Clefts of the Rock - responsibility
Next week: "Forest Star - humility"
Thursday, November 22, 2007
a prayer of thanksgiving
General Thanksgiving
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer
Sunday, November 18, 2007
30 Days of Thankfulness--Day 18
I fear I dropped the ball on this one, KM, and I repent. But this much show itself in action. So here goes:
What I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for God: Father, Son and Spirit, who in grace works to bring us into his triune communion of love (John 17 and other passages in John).
I'm thankful for Jesus Christ, by whom we have forgiveness of sins and a new life, his life, to live in this world as we leave our old life in Adam, behind.
I'm thankful for God's ongoing grace in Jesus for us, which we need always, both for forgiveness and for renewing us in his way.
I'm thankful for my faithful, loving and true wife, Deb. Deb is a godly person who loves God and others with a true heart. A good, faithful wife who lovingly serves and is dependable.
I'm thankful for God's goodness shown to us as a family. Tiffany continues to go to school to become a Medical Assistant. And we have a grandchild to come. She and her boyfriend Chris are talking of marriage. Pray for God's work in their lives.
I'm thankful for a good church of many loving people in whom Christ is seen.
I'm thankful for the work God gives us through which we can glorify him.
I'm thankful for activities we enjoy doing, such as, in my case reading; conversation- including this blogging; and any fun activities we enjoy.
I'm thankful for God's sovereign work in our world and how we can trust him no matter what.
I'm thankful for life itself in this world, that in Jesus there is always hope.
I'm thankful for what we have to look forward to beyond this life, and that in Christ, God will make all things right and new, in judgment and grace.
Okay, of course I could go on. But for any of you who would like to join in on your blog in this exercise, please do. If you do so you're to tag at least a couple of others. I defer, but encourage any reader to do so. Go to KM's blog.
What I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for God: Father, Son and Spirit, who in grace works to bring us into his triune communion of love (John 17 and other passages in John).
I'm thankful for Jesus Christ, by whom we have forgiveness of sins and a new life, his life, to live in this world as we leave our old life in Adam, behind.
I'm thankful for God's ongoing grace in Jesus for us, which we need always, both for forgiveness and for renewing us in his way.
I'm thankful for my faithful, loving and true wife, Deb. Deb is a godly person who loves God and others with a true heart. A good, faithful wife who lovingly serves and is dependable.
I'm thankful for God's goodness shown to us as a family. Tiffany continues to go to school to become a Medical Assistant. And we have a grandchild to come. She and her boyfriend Chris are talking of marriage. Pray for God's work in their lives.
I'm thankful for a good church of many loving people in whom Christ is seen.
I'm thankful for the work God gives us through which we can glorify him.
I'm thankful for activities we enjoy doing, such as, in my case reading; conversation- including this blogging; and any fun activities we enjoy.
I'm thankful for God's sovereign work in our world and how we can trust him no matter what.
I'm thankful for life itself in this world, that in Jesus there is always hope.
I'm thankful for what we have to look forward to beyond this life, and that in Christ, God will make all things right and new, in judgment and grace.
Okay, of course I could go on. But for any of you who would like to join in on your blog in this exercise, please do. If you do so you're to tag at least a couple of others. I defer, but encourage any reader to do so. Go to KM's blog.
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