“Giving thanks is the sacrifice that honors me, and I will surely save all who obey me.” (Psalm 50:23 Good News Translation)
What will you do on this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving? Will you run to the mall? Will you be a fixture in front of the TV watching athletic events! Will your mind switch from eating to gifting, or more likely getting? Will all the goodness you mentioned in your prayers of thanksgiving be words that disappear into the thin air!
Now that we honored God on the special day, called Thanksgiving, should we not turn our attention to obeying Him?
Let me be specific for the purpose of today’s meditation. In some shape, form, or fashion, shouldn’t your acclamation of praise be followed by action that reflects that you have been moved to let the Lord use you in some way to bless others. Maybe it is a phone call to cheer someone up. Maybe you can visit someone who you know spent the day in an assisted living place? Perhaps you can bless a homeless panhandler, abandoning the belief that all such people are carrying out a scam. I don’t know about you, but I have been in the position to wonder where my next meal was coming from!
If you have to go back to work, perhaps you don’t just talk about the great meal you had, but you tell somebody about the great God to whom you owe all the praise.
Are you about to throw away all the surplus food that was leftover? Well how about, inviting somebody who was not able to come to your dinner and did not have the means to have the full spread you laid out, to come over and pick up a couple of take-out plates or dine with you? If nothing else, you can pray for those who need to realize where their blessings come from or go through a list of names, praying for others’ needs rather than just your own needs or desires.
There may be a neighbor that you know, or suspect would benefit from you packing up a box of newly purchased foods and sharing with them after Thanksgiving and by doing so, addressing their food insecurity.
You decide what you are going to do to impact someone else’s life, so they too can recognize that whatever their condition and wherever they are in life, literally, generationally, economically, or physically, God has not forgotten about them and thus, they should have a feeling of thanksgiving too!
Thank God for the opportunity to do something the day after! Somebody is going to be moved by this and I thank God for touching hearts through this meditation and causing somebody in some way to play it forward, as they say, on this day after. Love you! Be blessed!
“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”-Unknown
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King