Thanksgiving

In a couple of days we will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Enjoy your turkey feast with all of the trimmings, and the turkey sandwich feasts for the days thereafter. Also enjoy non-stop football and relatives galore. More than anything though please take some time to reflect on what God has done for you and yours and thank Him.

I was reviewing some of the things for which I am thankful and I will not bore you to tears with it, but my wife and I have been taking care of our beautiful twin granddaughters while my son and daughter-in-law have been moving into their beautiful new home and trust me those little gals “love” their Papaw. What a joy it has been to be around them for the past few days; yes I am thankful. My youngest son and his wife announced that yet another Williamson is on the way and it looks like they will be getting “on the board” by July of next year. Wow! Yes I am thankful! Business is good and so is most everything else and I am thankful!

That is not to say that everything is a bed of roses. My father has some serious health issues as does my step-mother. Recently our company lost a very nice deal. I hate to lose. In fact it is so bad that if I am rooting for a particular team like the Georgia Bulldogs for example, I will rarely if ever watch the football game live. Instead I pre-record it and if the DAWGS win, then I watch it; if not I delete it without ever watching it. That is a sickness is it not? I am the same way about business. We won one of the largest deals in the world for food service the other day. A few days later we lost a nice deal and I was livid. In fact I am still not over it and am grinding my teeth to powder over it

Some folks, me included sometimes seem to overlook the good things with which we are blessed and focus on the negative. We need to understand that we cannot win them all and in fact sometimes the things that we desire the most are not actually good for us. Take the deal we lost for example. My son told me that the project leaders for the deal have not thought the project through and there are many serious problems with it; in fact some of them are so bad that the chance of succeeding with it are not very good. Further with all of the business we have won recently, our infrastructure would be stretched even thinner; similar to throwing another log on the fire when the room is already quite warm. All things considered, it is probably best that we did not win this particular deal. Yeah right Gr-r-r-r

I say all of that to suggest that when we go to the Lord in thanksgiving we should do it in a spirit of “thanksgiving” for all of those things with which we have been blessed and not harp on the things which we “perceive” to be bad things that have happened to us. Many times we approach God as though He is some mega ATM and focus entirely upon asking for things, or worse rail to Him like a spoiled child about losing a contest, and/or not getting something that we want.

I believe this special time of year should be especially set aside for “thanking”, and not asking. Yes the Bible tells us to come to God with everything, but concentrate this Thursday on being thankful especially for Jesus Christ and salvation and hold off on asking for anything at least on this special day. (Hmmm. Now that I think about it, you might ask Him for just one request, and that would be to give you some strength in avoiding stuffing like a pig the entire holiday). Happy Thanksgiving!

Psalm 100:4
Enter into His gates with
thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him,
and bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures for
generations.