Family

A Thanksgiving Prayer

/ pastorpete51 / 6 Comments 
One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. Psalm 145:4 KJV

O Father, I seek you this morning with a heart filled with memories of your love and faithfulness to our family through the years. You have blessed us, helped us, forgiven often, given comfort in sorrows, and through everything we have lived through You have given us hope.

So, on this day, which is set aside for giving thanks, we pray that you would show your great love and faithfulness again, especially to the next generation. May they accomplish more for You, trust you more deeply when facing their own challenges, oppositions and trials, and love you more unselfishly than we have, so that they will show your love and grace to a world growing darker and more hopeless every year.

Fill our hearts, not only our tables, teach us to humbly listen to your voice above all voices and look for your face among all the faces, because You are our only hope and the God of our Salvation. Thank you, Father, that You have brought us this far, kept us in spite of how often we have messed up, failed You and forgotten Your goodness. So, now we come to praise, You, and ask for Your strength to show Your wonderful love, power and kindness to the next generation. And we ask this all in the name of our Great Savior Jesus Christ our Lord and give You thanks with all of our heart, our mind and strength!

The Least Important Thing

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And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall diligently teach them to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 ESV

Though I am retired, I continue to manage a large farm, which has been converted into a weekend rental. Among my duties is paying the various contractors, one of whom is a young mailman named Jesse, who along with his wife, clean the place in their spare time after work. The many hours they put in, remind me of myself at their age. Back then, with two teenage boys at home, a mortgage, and a car payment, it seemed we were always short on money. But looking back now some 50 years later, I now realize that the least important thing I did during that time was to make money.

I am not saying that working or paying bills doesn’t matter. In fact, we learn in the Bible that before Adam sinned, and even before God created Eve, Adam had a job. You are probably shouting right now. “What job was that?” Now, if you are wondering, about Adam’s entry level job, it was to name the animals that God brought them to Him. Maybe Adam started with Aardvark, and worked his way through the dolphins, lions, and whales, as one by one, Adam named thousands of animals. Finally, he was so exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep and while he rested, God created Eve. Yes, work is good and a gift from God, but sometimes we begin to juggle a growing collection of tasks in the way that a circus performer sends plates spinning on a variety of different sticks. It is all very impressive until the moment that they all come crashing down. Often the crash that we hear in our lives is the sound of a door slamming shut behind a close friend, a lonely teenager, or an angry wife, who have felt ignored, abandoned, or undervalued. We have forgotten God’s command to not just rush back and forth to church on Sundays and then hurry on to our next activity. God calls us to take time to talk about His words and find ways to weave them into our everyday lives. Those words which created planets, formed the glaciers and waterfalls are more than simply lines to be remembered: they are holy and pure and above all they are words that give us life. Have God’s words stirred your heart today? Then, pause for moment, bow your head in prayer and remember that what matters most of all is that God loved us and sent His only Son, so that we could spend all eternity with Him!

Glad to Be His Child

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Having a child throw a tantrum in a restaurant is every father or mother’s worst nightmare. People stare, they wonder out loud about your parenting ability. We blush and sweat and rack our brains about what to do, because right then our kid is just making us crazy! But did you ever stop to think that there are days when we act just like that with God. We misbehave, talk back, complain and fuss and sometimes even complain at the top of our lungs to anyone who will listen. But just as any parent who truly loves their child, God doesn’t abandon us in the restaurant. Instead in those moments when we are at our worst, though God will correct us, He still claims us as His own. Now that kind of love and grace is something that makes me say, “He has made me glad, yes He has made me glad!” I hope you enjoy my memorable story and join in us singing this joyful chorus by Leona Bruce Von Brethorst. No matter what we face, what failures we are in the middle of or how far we feel from God, we can still turn back and “Enter His gates, with thanksgiving in our hearts,” because by grace God still claims us as His child!