Pause with Pastor Joel – November 29, 2022

 
Last week was a quiet week at church. Our Office Administrator and our Custodian were both on vacation. We weren’t officially open and it was a short work week anyway with the Thanksgiving holiday.
A short week didn’t mean a slow week. In fact, with both of the other staff people out, I was picking up pieces I don’t usually do. Checking the mail, emptying garbage, cleaning, moving tables and chairs, updating the website and scheduling user groups. Phew!
Let me tell you, I was truly thankful on Thanksgiving. I was thankful for the break, but I also found that I was thankful throughout the week for our staff and for all of the people that do different jobs around the church. When I suddenly had to do things I don’t normally do, I was more thankful than ever for the people that normally do those things.
It can be easy to begin to take things for granted. The Thanksgiving holiday has always been an opportunity to stop and consider what we may have started taking for granted and to give thanks and bring a spirit of gratitude back to our lives.
Everything that we have is a gift from God! As the fallen people we are we become ungrateful, we take things for granted, we figure that the things we have are OURS. As people, we must stay connected to the idea of gratitude at all times.
I fail at this as well. It’s why I was SO thankful last week because suddenly I didn’t have the two staff people around that usually do the work they do and so I had to pick up the slack.
As Christian, Thanksgiving is a chance to be thankful again, but each day is also an invitation to be thankful and to reconnect to the reality that we have NOTHING aside from God.
I was reminded of this forcefully this last week. I plan to spend time in prayer this week asking God to help me to not return to that place of taking things for granted, but to instead be thankful at all times.
What are you thankful for?

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