Thankful

  Thankful

  giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;

As Thanksgiving approaches many will be making preparations for the turkey dinner they will be enjoying with their loved ones. It is a time when we turn our thoughts on all the things we are thankful for. Ephesians 5:20 tells us that we are to give thanks ALWAYS for ALL things unto God... This scripture implies that we are to give thanks in the bad times as well as the good. It is easy to be thankful when life is going well, when the bills are paid, when our health is good, and when our loved ones are doing well. As we all know life isn't always sunshine and roses. Everybody has good times and bad times - that's just life.

Sometimes we have to look for the good in our day, the little blessings that God puts in our day. I'm very thankful for our two little grandchildren, but not as excited about the fact that they live so far away, and we see them only a few times a year. We enjoy all of the videos and pictures that our daughter emails us and I am thankful for them. Since we don't see them as much as we would like to we make the most of every precious moment we have with them.

Being thankful is a choice. We can choose to ignore the everyday blessings that come our way just because we had a bad day at work or the car broke down on the way to work - I've been there. Sometimes it's hard to see the good on those days, but it is there if we look hard enough because God is faithful and He never leaves us alone. I have found that looking for and being thankful for the little blessings has helped me through some very sad times.

There are so many things we could take for granted if we are not careful to have a thankful heart: the beautiful colors of fall, the lovely smells of spring, a little baby’s belly laugh - I could go on.

We must be careful to never let the things you want make you forget to be thankful for the things you have.

So I would challenge us all to look for things to be thankful for, not just during this Thanksgiving season, but all year long.

-Written By Keena Worley

Easy Pickins

Easy Pickins 

 "But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died "

I just came in from pulling weeds from my driveway and with a garden bed full of weeds, you would have thought I would have chosen to go there instead. But no. I don’t mind pulling weeds from my driveway. You know why? Because the weeds always come out. Roots and all. I can pull the toughest weed right out with little to no resistance. The roots just can’t hang on when there is sand and lots of rocks. Jesus said something about this too. (Matt 13:5-6, Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died.)

It made me think about my garden beds that have been neglected. I go through times where weeding isn’t my priority and before I know it, the weeds take over. All it would take is 15 minutes a day and this wouldn’t happen.

When I pull weeds from the flower bed, MOST of the time I do not get the root tip. Dandelions are some of the toughest weeds. Their roots go deep and if the very tip doesn’t come out, you can be sure in one week it starts all over again.

Why don’t I just spray some chemical on it and be done for a month? I need the sunshine, I need the exercise and our world needs fewer toxins. Doesn’t that just scream at you? For the weeds in my life, I just need some daily time with Jesus, I need the discipline and I need less sin in my world.

On the flip side, does the enemy consider me as being in the driveway or in the flowerbed? 

-Written By Tracy Carpenter