Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart
I have sent thousands of words out into the world over the past few years. Sometimes when I read them back, I feel like writing an Augustine style retractions essay, outlining all of the faults and shortcomings contained within my body of work. Among them, are these:
Thanksgiving Challenge: A Message in a Bottle
Adsum Try Ravenhill, GCD
How wrong I was!
The year after this article was released I attended two Thanksgiving dinners, last year I think I made it to four1. GCD (
) published this article the year before we moved, and before we even knew we were moving! Just six months later, we would join a Church Plant populated largely by Americans who had made the decision to travel across the Atlantic to carry out the Great Commission in the UK. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, we had much to be thankful for.As I’m currently preparing for two Thanksgiving dinners this week, I thought now might be a good time to share this article again, because although this sentence was soon to be disproved, the rest still rings true.
The article is called “Thanksgiving Challenge: A Message in a Bottle.” Over fifty percent of you reading live in either America or Canada, and so this article was written ostensibly to you, but not just for you. In it, I call upon you guys to lead us—the rest of the world, that is—into a greater appreciation for the role of thanksgiving in the life of the Christian. Most of us have no such holiday, no similar opportunity to reflect, but we all still need to live lives of thanksgiving.
With said that, I also know that this can be a hard time of year for many. Thanksgiving poses challenges and historical grievances, especially in an election year like this. In this article I included a prayer that I hope will help to frame thanksgiving in a way that glorifies God, and helps you to love others around you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and about any exciting plans you have this year.
Grace and Peace,
Recommended Media of the Week
Last week,
looked at another celebration. This time the exaltation of Christ the King, a holy day in the Catholic Church, as well as the CofE. Cary draws out the deeper meaning behind the holiday—as well as giving some surprising details about it’s origins—to help encourage not only those churches who celebrated it, but all of us who worship Jesus our Lord. I love the title. The article more than lives up to it.
What do
, an American Football player, and a viral Instagram comment have in common? Check out the latest from to find out.
I loved this version of the hymn, “Give Thanks” and so I thought this would be a good final note to leave on today.
Obviously these were all on different dates, I wasn’t rushing from house to house or anything, but we were celebrating Thanksgiving all the same.
Glad to see America having a positive effect for once.
Four thanksgivings sounds like a lot of yummy food!! 😍