Giving thanks

I realized this morning that I was grumping on Canadian Thanksgiving Day.  Not good.

I find it easy to groan, complain and criticize.  But I have learned, too, that I feel much better when I praise God and give thanks.  And, as one writer said, God is worthy of our worship.

It's something I keep coming back to - praise and worship and thanksgiving.  I come back to it to remind myself how important it is.

I have been thinking recently that I must live my life every day in a cloud of thanks and praise and worship.  That's why I caught myself grumping this morning - I was out of tune with my Lord.

This being Thanksgiving Day, I will concentrate on thanks to God.  Dick Eastman, author of The Hour than Changes the World,  says:

"Thanksgiving differs from praise in that praise focuses on who God is, whereas thanksgiving focuses on what God has specifically done for us."

Eastman says thanksgiving might be called a "confession of blessings" where we recognize specifics of what God has done for us and voice them to the Lord.  He stresses being specific, mentioning even the little things in life.  It won't be long before we see how good God is.

Eastman suggests we let our minds wander over the activities of the day and thank the Lord for the good things he has given us - often through others.

He recommends that we:

• Give thanks for spiritual blessings.  Have you met God in a special way in your prayer or study time?  Has he worked profoundly in the lives of friends or family?
• Give thanks for material blessings. Thank him for small things - the warm house you live in or the car that takes you easily to grocery stores.  Not everyone has these blessings.
• Give thanks for physical blessings. Thank the Lord for being able to walk, or hear, or speak, or see.  Put aside whatever pain you may have at the moment and thank him for what is physically good in your life.
• Give thanks for outside blessings.  Thank God for what he is doing in the world around you.  Perhaps it might be for someone who has come to know God as Saviour.  Or, you could thank him for services of Christian compassion around the globe.

David put it best in Psalm 103:2: "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."