And now comes November. Another great month that begins with All Saints' Day, traditionally November 1 (our worship celebration is October 30), and ends with Thanksgiving and the beginning of the season of Advent. I love this time of year because it bears so much spiritual significance.
The Kalamazoo District offered a Pastor's Appreciation Day yesterday at Westwood UMC. That congregation has special meaning for me as they were the home church for our family while I served the Wesley Foundation on Western's campus. The main speaker offered this insight in the context of reflecting Christ's glory (2 Corinthians 3:18):
What we look AT consistently,
we begin to look LIKE over time.
Where we focus our attention and energy greatly impacts the shape or dimensions of our existence. The value of thanksgiving or living gratefully is that it breaks the hold on our tendency to think we can provide for ourselves all by ourselves. For most of us, every day we live in houses we did not build, eat food we did not grow and wear clothes we did not sew. In other words, we are dependent creatures by design. We need each other and we need God.
The New Living Translation has this beginning to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount: "God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them" (Matthew 5:3). In the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:1-21 (the other version is Exodus 20:1-17) the motivation for resting on the Sabbath is gratitude for God's liberating work in bringing our spiritual ancestors out of slavery in Egypt.
Living gratefully allows us to relax our bodies and release our anxiety, indeed frees us to love God and our neighbors. Such a view of our lives also renews our strength to prevail in the challenges of daily life.
