A Thanksgiving Rush to Christmas

November 23, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Autumn leaf decor with words, "Give thanks"

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

AS MY HUSBAND AND I drove through our neighborhood the weekend before Thanksgiving, we saw people out in their yards, already putting up Christmas lights and decorations.

“People are certainly starting on Christmas early,” I said.

“They sure are,” my husband responded. “I remember when people didn’t put up Christmas decorations until a couple of weeks before Christmas.”

“Then it became right after Thanksgiving. Now it’s after Halloween—before Thanksgiving,” I reflected. “People just can’t wait. I guess it has something to do with coming out of the pandemic. Everyone needs a little Christmas.”

Being of the old school, our first thoughts were to wonder if people were overlooking Thanksgiving in a rush to Christmas. But later that week as I reflected on it further, something hit me.

What hit me was a scripture: Psalm 100:4. “Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.”

God’s Word was telling me to enter His gates with thanksgiving. In other words, God was saying thanksgiving provides an entryway into His presence. And, as Christians, what do we want to experience at Christmas?  God’s presence!

Thanksgiving is the beginning of the holiday season, and as we enter this season by giving thanks at Thanksgiving, we are also entering into God’s presence where we can more fully experience the holiness of Christmas in the days ahead.

All of a sudden, the holiday season began to fit together in my mind in a whole new way.  Perhaps Thanksgiving can, after all, be the beginning of Christmas.  For when we spend the day in thanksgiving to God for the blessings He has given us, we can be preparing our hearts for what lies ahead when we celebrate the birth of the Christ child.

For many of us, Thanksgiving is all about getting together with family and eating turkey. Yes, we will start it off with a prayer of thanks, and many of us come up with a creative way for family members to share what they are thankful for. But as we lift our hearts to God in thanksgiving and worship, it can actually be much more. It can become a way to enter into the advent season to prepare our hearts for the worship of the king.

So if we are seeing a Thanksgiving rush to Christmas, perhaps we can use it to make both of these holidays more meaningful. They are still separate holidays, but the one prepares us for the other. We are leaving the ghosts of Halloween behind and lifting up God’s name in praise and thanksgiving as we enter into a time of celebration and worship for God’s holy gift to us, the birth of His son Jesus, who came to save us from the darkness of this world so we could live with Him in eternity.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his gates with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” Psalm 100:3-5

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When You Don’t Feel Thankful

November 27, 2019 by Leave a Comment

As we approach Thanksgiving, some of you anticipate the day with joy, happy at the idea of getting together with family, feasting on turkey, and remembering the blessings of the past year.

But others of you experience a sense of dread as the day draws near. Monumental problems in your life crowd out any sense of joy. Blessings seem a distant memory – a fantasy of days gone by. With Thanksgiving day drawing near, you’re not sure you have anything to be thankful for.

I remember such a time when my marriage was collapsing around me. My husband and I were separated. Confusion and fear gripped my heart and I had no idea what the future held. It was hard to be thankful.

During this difficult time in my life, however, I discovered an amazing irony. While I often did not feel thankful because of my painful circumstances, I found that when I let go of my pain and confusion to raise my eyes toward Heaven and simply thank God for being my Lord and Father, my heart grew lighter and I felt at peace.

As I magnified God through my praise, the debris of doubt and fear cleared from my mind and my perspective changed. God appeared larger and I became more aware of His awesome power and majesty. As a result, my painful circumstances seemed less weighty and prominent. I saw only God, only His love, only His comforting presence. Thanking and praising God was a salve to my aching heart. In the midst of praise I knew I would be alright.

The irony I discovered is that thanking God—when it seemed I had nothing to be thankful for—actually gave me something to be thankful for.

Psalm 100:4 tells us to “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.”

In other words, it is when we are thankful–when we praise His name—that we can enter into the very presence of God. And when we do, we find that His majesty and power is greater than any problem we encounter. In the light of His almighty presence and power, the darkness in our lives grows pale.

When we thank God and praise Him, we open a window into Heaven through which God smiles down upon us and surrounds us with His presence. The opportunity to be thankful and lift our praise to God is an inexplicably beautiful gift God has given us, a gift that brings us into His presence and lifts our hearts out of the surrounding circumstances of our lives. Praising God and thanking Him brings us into His courts where God’s glory outshines the tinsel and washes away the dross of the world around us.

Psalm 28:7 says, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him.”

If you are having trouble feeling thankful, when you wake up on Thanksgiving day begin by praising God. Thank Him for His love, which never ceases. Thank Him for being a big God that nothing can defeat. Thank Him that you have the incredible privilege of coming before the God of the universe and offering up your heart.  When you do, He will pour His strength into your weakness. He will fill your heart with Himself and the forever love He has for you. Not only will you find you do have something to be thankful for, but with the tenderness of God’s presence so near, you might find this Thanksgiving to be more meaningful than ever before.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:11).

“Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. . . .  Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:1-2, 6).

Find hope for yourself and your marriage with Broken Heart on Hold, Surviving Separation

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Filed Under: Depression, disappointment, Praise, Problems, Thanksgiving, Where is God? Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Entering Into Thanksgiving

November 24, 2014 by 5 Comments

gateway“WHERE ARE YOU GOD? Where are your blessings? How do I find you?” Beneath the words of heartache in the emails I often receive, these are the underlying questions that I hear in them. The pain is palpable. And at this time of year, it’s especially difficult.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I know some of your hearts are heavy with pain and longing, and you’re groping to see the blessings. Thanksgiving is coming on too quick. And you know Christmas is close behind. You’re just not ready to celebrate.

When life hits us hard, how do we enter in?

Psalm 100:4 says “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.”

If you grew up in church like I did, you probably heard this phrase many times. It’s a familiar psalm, and if you’re like me, it’s probably so familiar that it just rolls off the tongue and through the mind . . . without truly connecting . . . . But last night as I lay in bed, thinking about this coming week . . . thinking about and praying for many of you for whom Thanksgiving comes in the midst of difficult times, these words swirled through my mind with new meaning. For these words give us God’s answer to the question many of us are asking. How do we enter in?

The psalmist says:

“With thanksgiving.”

When God seems distant, when life offers more questions than answers, when our hearts are heavy, Psalm 100 says to enter into his gates with thanksgiving.

It’s another one of God’s paradoxes, another one of those spiritual truths that hovers above our sense of logic. How do we grasp it?

By entering in . . .

With thanksgiving.

When we can’t find God, when life is hard, when questions abound, lifting our voices with thanksgiving brings us into the gates of God’s presence. All it takes is starting with just a few words of thanks.

What do we have to be thankful for?

Anything.

Something small perhaps. A ray of sunshine pushing through the mist of a gloomy day. Raindrops sparkling on the windowpane. A soft pillow to lay our head. The smooth aroma of coffee on a cold morning. A friendly voice on the phone.

As we thank God for small things, He will begin to fill our minds with more. And one by one, little by little, we will enter in.

And in the midst of our thanksgiving, we will find God . . . embracing us, comforting us until our hearts open up with praise. And then we are in His courts. We are in His presence.

In His presence, His light shines upon us. No, the problems are not gone. But there in His presence we have all we need, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the God of creation, the God who loves us, the God who walks with us through the mazes of life. And this is something to be truly thankful for.

This is thanksgiving.

“Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” Psalm 100:4-5

Let this song of praise lift you into a time of Thanksgiving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5CMSSAx_c

A heavy heart grows lighter through thanksgiving.

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Filed Under: Depression, Grief, Lonliness, Praise, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized, Where is God? Tagged With: , , , , ,
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