Be Thankful

When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God.

✙ Deuteronomy 8:12, 14

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Forty years is a long time. For anybody. But that's how long Israel had to spend wandering in the wilderness before they were allowed to enter the home God had promised them. As difficult as this period must have been, it forged them into a community. That kind of pilgrimage does something to a people that practically nothing else can. They had to depend daily on God. And they had to trust each other. 

So an easier, settled life was as much of a threat as it was a promise. We dread hard times. But they can be better for our spirits than good times can be. For the more ease we experience, the more likely we are to take our blessings for granted.

The Bible's solution is simple: Be thankful. All the time. 

Do we have all we need? Thank God for it! Do we have more than we need? Share it! Do we lack what we need? Be grateful for the opportunity to depend on the Source of all things. There is no circumstance in which we cannot remember God and be thankful.
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Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

✙ 1 Thessalonians 5:18

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Prayer after thinking about today's devotion:

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All-seeing God, teach us to be open with you about our needs, to seek your support in our trials, to admit before you our sins, and to thank you for all your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

✙ A New Zealand Prayer Book

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After your own thanksgivings & petitions, close with the Lord's Prayer.

 

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