Remember to take time out for thanks

This time of year, we become very busy. We get caught up in planning a huge meal for our family and friends, cleaning the house and having the perfect outfit for each occasion.

Many of you right now are sitting around coming up with your menu, deciding when you will buy everything and hoping you don’t forget anything.

Others may be looking forward to Black Friday shopping and planning out your itinerary, ensuring you make it to each store to get the best bang for your buck.

All of this reminds me – too often around this time of year, we become so consumed with everything going on around us we tend to forget what the holidays are all about.

Thanksgiving should be a time to sit around with either your family – or your military family who you have come to know – and reflect on what God has done for you this year and what you are thankful for.

Though the world has made this time of year a huge marketing tool and money-making scheme, I believe God never intended it to be this way.

Billy Graham, in his devotional “Hope for Each Day,” describes what it was like for the Pilgrims on their first Thanksgiving.

“During the first long winter, seven times as many graves were dug for the dead as homes were built for the living. Seed imported from England failed to grow, and a ship that was to bring food and relief brought 35 more mouths to feed, but not an ounce of provisions.

“The Pilgrims caught fish and hunted fowl and deer. They had a little English meal and some Indian corn. Yet their lives were marked by a spirit of thankfulness.

On one occasion William Brewster, rising from a scanty Plymouth dinner of clams and water, gave thanks to God ‘for the abundance of the sea and the treasures hid in the sand.’”

This is what Thanksgiving should be about.

God’s intent is for us to be thankful for the way he provides and blesses us each day.

Psalms 107:1 says: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good: his love endures forever.” When we look at scripture we can see that not only does God’s love for us endure, but it is because of his love that he provides for us each day. Matthew 6:26 says: “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?”

My prayer for you this year is that you do not become so consumed by all the shopping, cooking, rushing around and entertaining that you

forget to simply sit down and reflect on all the ways in which God

has blessed you and your family this year.

A few things to be thankful for come to mind: the free country we live in – which many of us or our loved ones have sworn to defend; a family or military family which loves us and helps us out in our time of need; a warm house to protect against the wonderful but ice-cold winters of Alaska.

My challenge to you this year is to set a little time aside from all of the busyness of the holidays and simply make a list of ways God has blessed you or even carried you this year.

The greatest thing I believe we can and should be thankful for is the fact we have a savior who loves us and died for us so that we have a home with him in eternity.

I pray that God will continue to bless you and your family as we move into another year.