I want to share from my Quiet Time today. I'm reading through the Psalms right now &, amazingly, today's focus was giving thanks.
God is so cool, y'all. He's not at all surprised that I'm reading this the week before Thanksgiving.
These words spoke to me so loudly; I wanted to share in case someone else needed to hear it.
Give Thanks in Plenty
Psalms 23-24; John 10:11-18; Acts 1:9-11
It seems so simple: give thanks in plenty. That's what those cornucopia centerpieces adorning our tables at Thanksgiving are all about, right?
I'm relatively well versed in bowing my head when times are good. I return thanks at mealtime for the food set before me and for the hands that prepared it. I have lived my life thanking the Lord when my needs were supplied - when college acceptance letters arrived and job offers were received, when the harvest was good and the report card was favorable, when the touchdown pass was completed, and that time I made it to the gas station just before the remaining fumes in my gas tank were exhausted.
"You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows." Psalm 23:5
Literal plenty makes a whole lot of sense to me - to all of us. We know it when we see it. We slap a "blessed" on the gifts we've been given, knowing full well Who the Giver is.
But I can't imagine that's where we ought to land. I don't think that's it.
The truth is, plenty is oh-so-much more than moments and mail and meatloaf. "Plenty" does not equal prosperity, just as "want" does not equal poverty. Our circumstances are not situated on a sliding scale from famine to abundance, and we would be sorely mistaken to allow our thanks to take a ride on that hypothetical scale.
For the believer in Christ, plenty and want are both constant states of being.
Yes, we all have real, felt needs. And we have noticeable, tangible blessings. But beyond the surface - in light of eternity - our constant state is a want of grace, and God is our constant and plentiful supplier.
He is our plenty. Our overflowing cups have absolutely nothing to do with bank accounts, or people, or horn-shaped centerpieces. They do not overflow with success and they do not empty with failure. Our cups overflow with the grace and mercy of an everlasting God - they overflow because there is always more than we can ask or imagine. This is our plenty.
Wherever we find ourselves on the worldly poverty-to-prosperity scale, let us see ourselves in constant want of His grace and ever in possession of an overflowing cup of mercy from an all-sufficient God. And let us give thanks.
"Think how much grace one saint requires, so much that nothing but the Infinite could supply him for one day; and yet the Lord spreads His table, not for one, but many saints, not for one day, but for many years; not for many years only, but for generation after generation." CH Spurgeon, Morning and Evening
From the She Reads Truth Bible