“Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it” (A.W. Tozer).

I wonder if we actually took time this Thanksgiving to give actual thanks, would it change our perspective a little? Would we be as anxious to rush out the next morning and trample over people to buy a lot of what we don’t need for people who don’t need it?

I’m definitely not knocking Black Friday. I do think that Thanksgiving as a holiday has become National Turkey Day and the gateway to Christmas and all things Christmas shopping. But I’m convicted more and more that gratitude doesn’t naturally flow out of me unless I’m intentional about choosing it. By default, I’m much more inclined to default to a mentality of entitlement rather than gratitude.

So to keep it short tonight, take some time this Thanksgiving to give thanks for the food in front of you and the people around you and the roof over your head. Remember all those who died so that we could have the freedom to worship and celebrate freely as we choose. And be sure to say your thanks out loud, both to God and to each other.

I think every believer at some point will face an obstacle that seems impossible. Maybe it’s an illness. Maybe it’s relational turmoil. Maybe it’s a job loss. Whatever it is, it can feel like the end, like staring at a great abyss with no way over.

But the older I get, the more I’ve come to believe that God is a God who specializes in making the impossible possible. In fact, I heard a pastor say once that to God impossible isn’t even remotely difficult. It’s easy.

Perhaps, you and I need to stop staring at what we can’t do and start focusing on what God can do. Maybe we need to believe in faith for God’s provision and take the next step. We can start by praying for discernment over what that next step looks like. We can pray for wisdom, claiming the promise that God isn’t stingy in handing out wisdom but gives generously to those who ask.

I think above all we need to remember that as much as we as God’s children want God to do right by us, God as our Heavenly Father wants even more to give good things to us as His children even more so than any earthly parent. His idea of what is good for us may not always match what we think that should look like, but in the end it ends up being better and what we would have chosen had we known what He knows.

Trust in the God who makes a way through Red Seas. Trust in the God who walks on water. Trust in the God who raises up people out of the grave and makes them live again. Then you will see that nothing is really impossible for God.

“Abraham, at this point, has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.

My goal is God himself . . .

At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, ‘In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee'” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

Honestly, that thought scares me a bit. At any cost? Just how much will it cost? And how much will it hurt?

But then I remember that there’s nothing worth nearly as much as the joy of knowing Christ. There’s no price I could ever pay that begins to compare with what He paid for me.

Anything else I could ever dream about or desire is like sand to a parched throat compared to the Living Water. I think about all those times I wanted all sorts of presents for Christmas that I couldn’t wait to possess but almost immediately grew tired of or lost interest in after I got them.

In the end, Jesus is my greatest joy. Everything else is a shadow and a copy. Everything good was merely pointing to Him. When everything else passes away, Jesus will remain and will still be the fulfillment of every longing of my heart and soul even into eternity.

I don’t know who originated this one, but it hit me right in the feels. It captured my thoughts better than I could have. Obedience is hard. The life of faith is hard. Maybe that’s why that while the road that leads to destruction is wide and crowded the road that leads to life is narrow and few find it. It does feel a lot like swimming upstream against the current of culture.

Again, I can’t give credit to the author of this but I thank Kim Mullins Blair for posting it (and extra thanks if she’s the one who wrote it). I’m praying it will speak to your heart as deeply as it did to mine. May it encourage you not to give up while doing good:

Hoo boy. I told you it was good, didn’t I?

“Do not worry! Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they
give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause
anxiety. The heart which clings to goods receives with them the choking burden of worry. Worry collects treasures, and treasures produce more worries. We desire to secure our lives with earthly goods; we want our worrying to make us worry-free, but the truth is the opposite. The chains which bind us to earthly goods, the clutches which hold the goods tight, are themselves worries.

Abuse of earthly goods consists of using them as a security for the next day.
Worry is always directed toward tomorrow. But the goods are intended only for today in the strictest sense. It is our securing things for tomorrow which
makes us so insecure today. It is enough that each day should have its own
troubles. Only those who put tomorrow completely into God’s hand and receive fully today what they need for their lives are really secure. Receiving daily liberates me from tomorrow.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

There’s something about that line from the Lord’s Prayer that can’t be overemphasized or overstated. Give us this day our daily bread. We’re not asking for enough bread for 20 years from now. We just need enough for today.

I’m not against retirement planning. I believe that’s not where our hopes should rest. No matter what, even if your 401K or your IRA tanks, your future is secure. Your hope is certain. God will take care of you.

Even more than He cares for lilies in a field or sparrows in a nest, God cares for you. He sees. He knows. His provision is in place.

Be at peace and rest in the everlasting arms tonight.

I don’t normally post things like this, but I read something that captured the essence of the difference between old and new Nashville. I’m including the entire original post and doing my best to give proper credit:

“Just so you know,
Nashville didn’t die.
It just changed clothes while nobody was looking.

The Nashville we knew
the one with publishing houses crammed into tiny houses on 16th and 17th Avenue
the one where demos were cut by real players in real rooms…
the one where coffee was bad and stories were good…
the one where a kid could walk from studio to studio hearing fiddles through thin walls…

that Nashville slipped out the side door quietly, like a songwriter going home after a late-night write.

No drama.
No farewell tour.
Just a soft “welp… we had a good run.”

And then the bulldozers came.

And then the condos came.
And the bar developers.
And the tourists with cowboy hats made in China.
And the new folks who think Broadway is Music Row.

And the people who carried the real history
the engineers, the musicians, the pluggers, the publishers, the session legends
they watched it happen and felt something holy get paved over.

All those rooms…
those little houses had SOUL.

They weren’t just workplaces.
They were:
idea factories,
nerve centers,
therapy offices,
confessionals,
midnight laboratories,
places where music was BORN, not just made.

Songs weren’t files.
They were children.

Studios weren’t businesses.
They were temples.

And the people in them weren’t “content creators.”
They were craftsmen.

Those spaces held magic because the people inside them carried magic.

And now the buildings are gone…

And the heartbreak is real.
And so is the truth:

The ghosts stay.
Even if the walls don’t.

The history lives in the people who were there.
The writers.
The artists.
The engineers.
The publishers.
The men and women who kept the lights on long after midnight.

People like YOU
you’re not watching a city fade…

You’re carrying its memory in your bones.

That’s why it hurts.

It’s not about nostalgia.
It’s about stewardship.

You remember what it MEANT.

“Everything is generational,”

This generation will create its own Nashville
bathroom vocals, laptop mixes, TikTok fame, and singles with more compression than soul.

They’re not wrong.

They’re just…
different.

They’re building a city that works for them,
the same way our generation built the Nashville that worked for us.

And the Nashville before ours built THEIR version.

It’s a relay race.

We don’t get to control how the next runner carries the baton.

We just pray they don’t drop it.

But here’s the bittersweet truth:
The new Nashville will never know what it lost.
And the old Nashville will never get back what it had.

But the memories?
Those stay.

In the pockets.
In the hearts.
In the people who lived the songs instead of streamed them.

And as long as those people breathe
the real Nashville breathes too.

You can’t bulldoze a story.
You can’t pave over a memory.
You can’t condo-ize a legacy.

Not as long as someone remembers the sound of the old floors,
the smell of the tape,
the hum of the consoles,
the faces of the players,
and the feel of a hit song being born in a tiny room at 2 a.m.

You’re not just remembering Nashville.

You’re keeping it alive.
And that matters more than any condo or coffee shop ever will” (Jason Wilburn).

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“We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)..

Faith based on feelings will inevitably falter at some point. Feelings are fickle, so faith needs a firmer foundation, Jesus is a solid cornerstone to build your faith upon. In fact, He is the source and sustainer of our faith.

If I wait until I’m feeling it to obey what God has told me to do, I will be disobedient, but if I obey in spite of what I feel, then my feelings will change.

Ultimate, I need a power outside myself to enable me to live out my faith. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. Then I can truly do all the things God calls me to through Him who gives me strength.