Friday, September 2, 2011

Devotional 9-2-11

“Living with Joyful Thanksgiving”

Have you ever given someone a gift that you thought was very special; something you had put a lot of thought into, only to see it passed over with hardly any reaction? Maybe, they even forgot to say thank you or worse found something wrong with the gift. Isn’t that what we all too often do with God’s gifts to us? It is all too easy to get bogged down in our every day lives and problems and forget the many blessings that God gives us every day (not to mention His greatest gift, his Son.)

Psalm 148 talks about how all of nature praises God. What is nature if not a glorious hymn of praise? Each season brings it’s own special joyful homage to God. In the spring, we watch as the world bursts forth with new life. The summer sun sparkles on the waters and warms the earth. In the autumn the leaves change to beautiful oranges, reds, and yellows and eventually fall to crunch noisily and joyfully under our feet. In winter, the earth sleeps. But, who can not watch a snowflake fall lazily from the sky and not know that nature is still celebrating God’s love? The moon and the stars at night, the sun by day, the winds. the oceans and rivers, the birds singing, the fish swimming, and all of the other animals on earth praise God by their very existence.

Nature praises God just by being. Is not one way to praise God by living our daily lives in joyful thanksgiving, aware of how truly blessed we really are?

Margaret Williams

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