Just for the record, Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday. It is a day set aside to thank God for our very lives and is neither national nor religious, but human.
The authentic history of that first Thanksgiving seems upheld more by legend than American history, but it seems that initial act of gratefulness to God for the goodness and generosity of the native peoples at a precarious time in our history was a wise way to face, endure and even embrace hardship. Today, our continued national observance of thanking God for our lives, our well being and the goodness and generosity of others is the most effective (and wisest) way to boost our nation once again during perilous times.
On the surface of this beautiful holiday, the heart felt desire to thank God for our lives and what prosperity we do have - albeit meager for the 1600 homeless people on the streets of Portland tonight - is a wise way to again empower our nation with an enduring and real power, rather than materialistic. I firmly believe the foundation of any great person or nation is in the awareness that our lives and livelihood are gifts from God - not of our own making, nor the work of our hands - but given to us from a generous and all loving God. It is gift, period.
A spirit of thankfulness to God is the hallmark of faith in God and in that faith is the spirit to live another day, submit another resume, love again. It is in the art of praising, in that very real intention to thank the great invisible One who responds to our praise and worship and thankfulness, with an even greater outpouring of His Spirit and His power, which is the source of our strength and vision for our individual lives and our national life together.
As we reach for enlightenment, personal power and a liberated spirituality, and realize our total dependence on God by thanking God first, allowing our hearts, minds and spirits to genuinely praise God, we will open the inner God faucet of God's great power and love.
The more filled we are with God's very Spirit, the greater our desire to enter into praise and thankfulness. We will soon realize that all our joy and love comes in that very substance of spirit, and then we will also realize that nothing on this earth - no job, no lover, no house - nothing - can separate us from that love. Perhaps sometimes we suffer losses and feel sad or forsaken, but those times only serve to show us that we have mistakenly placed value on those things. We have slipped. When we realize that, and withdraw our value, we again can enter into praise to God for teaching us this most important spiritual lesson, and again, get on our knees and thank God.
When we can honestly say that whether we have - everything or nothing - whether we have a home or live on the street, whether we will have family and a dinner tomorrow, regardless of anything that's going on around us, we can and will serve God with a joyful spirit of love and thanks, then we will be ready for the great love affair with life. When we are empowered with God's spirit, through our own praises and thankfulness, we can endure anything with a wisdom and strength beyond our former understanding.
As we reach for enlightenment, personal power and a liberated spirituality, and realize our total dependence on God by thanking God first, allowing our hearts, minds and spirits to genuinely praise God, we will open the inner God faucet of God's great power and love.
The more filled we are with God's very Spirit, the greater our desire to enter into praise and thankfulness. We will soon realize that all our joy and love comes in that very substance of spirit, and then we will also realize that nothing on this earth - no job, no lover, no house - nothing - can separate us from that love. Perhaps sometimes we suffer losses and feel sad or forsaken, but those times only serve to show us that we have mistakenly placed value on those things. We have slipped. When we realize that, and withdraw our value, we again can enter into praise to God for teaching us this most important spiritual lesson, and again, get on our knees and thank God.
When we can honestly say that whether we have - everything or nothing - whether we have a home or live on the street, whether we will have family and a dinner tomorrow, regardless of anything that's going on around us, we can and will serve God with a joyful spirit of love and thanks, then we will be ready for the great love affair with life. When we are empowered with God's spirit, through our own praises and thankfulness, we can endure anything with a wisdom and strength beyond our former understanding.
Today and tomorrow and forever,
Thank you God for this precious
gift of life and for all of us,
even for our challenges
as well as our blessings,
for to you they are the same,
and given out of your great
wisdom and goodness.
Amen
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