Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise Ye the Lord! Psalm 150:6
My morning reading ended with the final chapter of Psalms. And as I paused to consider its message, I was struck by how God finishes with a personal call. Yes, we need to praise him with timbrels and dance, yes trumpet players, harpists and drummers should honor God too. Even birds, animals and fish are commanded to worship, when He says, “Everything that hath breath.” In earlier passages even sun, moon and stars, are directed to praise and thank God. But God wants us to know that we have an even more important place. Here, in this final phrase, of the last verse, God closes with the command: “Praise ye the Lord!” It is as if God is shouting, “Hey you! …Yes, I mean you there! …. Don’t just stand around waiting for someone else to do the job. You get busy and start praising God too!
So, let’s remember in the middle of the football, the turkey and family time that our number one job and most important part of our day is to give God praise!
But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things,but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:40-42
This well-loved passage has many of us chuckling, as we consider ourselves a bit more like a Martha than a Mary. But our fondness for the story may cause us to miss the reason Luke included it. He alone could have recalled from firsthand experience as he accompanied Paul, how a life of service could be thrown off track by busyness. Martha was in many ways a lot like Paul. She loved Jesus with all her heart and didn’t care what anyone else thought about her faith. Remember it was Martha who invited Jesus over in the first place. Yet somewhere in the middle of her determination to serve Jesus, Martha began to lose focus. With her house filled with disciples, servants and even a few curious neighbors, she forgot that the whole occasion was supposed to be about Jesus. In the midst of our serving, sometimes you and I, like Martha, also forget who the most important person in the house is!
There are other times we get caught in the “service trap”, because of the expectations of others. As Pastor Rick Warren once famously said, “God loves you, and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life!” We mean to take time for prayer and reading God’s word, but the phone rings, a text message grabs our attention, or we decide to check our Facebook page, just one more time. Little by little our day is eaten away by distractions, and the Holy Spirit’s voice is drowned out by the banging of our own pots and pans. With our hours consumed by serving, it is easy to miss out on taking time for the only one who really knows what we should do.
Last of all, while Martha asked for Jesus to pay attention to her needs and feelings, Mary just sat at HIs feet, with her eyes on Him. When we allow our serving to overwhelm us, we may elicit sympathy from others or even cause them to jump in to give us a hand, but we lose our chance to point to Jesus. But when, like Mary we give our complete attention to Him, then we can begin again to draw others to look to Him, because He is the most important person in the room!
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4 NLT
We often think of the first Thanksgiving as when the Pilgrims celebrated God’s provision, after having survived their first terrible Winter. But the fact that it is now a national holiday owes in large part to one very determined woman named, Sarah Hale. Sarah was a renowned editor of a Lady’s periodical and an author. In her novel, “Northwood” which she wrote in 1827, Sarah began the conversation about adding Thanksgiving as an annual observance. Soon she launched a letter writing campaign to governors, congressmen, and presidents. Despite growing popular opinion, the idea of making Thanksgiving an official holiday met varying degrees of opposition from many politicians until October of 1863. There, in the middle of our bloodiest war, Abraham Lincoln recognized that what our nation needed most was not just a military victory, but more importantly, God’s intervention. He understood, as today’s verse makes clear, that the way through the door into God’s presence came by giving thanks. Though Thanksgiving was generally observed after the war, the official designation of it by the law of the land did not come until December of 1941, right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Today, we are blessed to have one day set aside every year: not just for football and turkey, but for remembering that it is God who has given us life and provided our needs. We need not wait for disaster to drive us to our knees. Thanksgiving and praise should be our opening prayer every morning and our closing thought each night. Thank God for His help, both in ages past and for His faithful presence right here and now. God bless you all and Happy Thanksgiving!
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