Have you every had one of those seasons when things—life—doesn’t
seem to be working? You are striving and working hard for things to work out a
certain way, and it’s not working at all. Christmas is a season in which all
the busyness, chores, and shopping seem to interrupt the things that are truly
important. Preparing our hearts for advent, cultivating our prayer life, developing
a life in the Word. These are the important things that we should be focusing
on. That is why I am so thankful for His grace; which gives me the strength to
do what I cannot do in my own power. He wants us to stop striving and to begin
thriving. We thrive when we spend time with Him and in His Word, and communicating
with Him in prayer. Stop striving and start thriving.
Ten things I am grateful for today:
1. His grace that empowers and
strengthens me.
2. His provision—He always
takes care of me and my family; a roof over my head, a car to drive; food on
the table.
3. His sovereignty—no matter
how much I strive, He helps to thrive instead when I abide in Him and focus on
the things that I need to.
4. His calling and His gifting
on my life, though I feel inadequate, His gifts and calling are irrevocable (Rom.
11:29).
5. I am thankful for the Christmas
season, that brings joy and anticipation in my heart for the things of God.
This is a hard one for me.
6. I am thankful for His Spirit
who reveals to me habits and mindsets that I need to change.
7. I am thankful for a particular
friend that the Lord graced me with years ago who faithfully prays for me.
8. I am thankful for an
encouraging word at the right moment from someone I least expected to hear
from.
9. I am thankful for another gift;
someone who is praying and fasting for me until I see a breakthrough in my life,
in obedience to His Spirit.
10. I am thankful for this
cute little Christmas farmhouse that you see in the pictures. My sister brought
it back from Texas for me, and when I see it, it makes me smile.
God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does
not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that
people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension,
free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our
nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where
God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he
aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can
keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free
and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what
is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all
wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of
human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and
performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to
lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak
and broken.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger:
Reflections on Advent and Christmas
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