My cup overflows with Your blessings – Psalm 23:5

It’s a story of sacrifice and survival; partnership and progress.  It was our country’s very first Thanksgiving.  Imagine the challenges the first settlers endured in 1620.  They left everyone they knew and everything that was familiar.  The Mayflower carried 102 voyagers across the Atlantic on a 66-day journey full of sickness and storms. That winter, nearly half of the voyagers died from disease and lack of shelter.  Yet, when the harvest season arrived, they set aside three full days to give thanks.  In spite of the hardships, there was still much to be grateful for.  They were alive. They were welcomed as strangers into a new land.  The natives taught them how to grow their own crops. They had food to eat and friends to share it with.  And...they had religious freedom, which is the very reason they came.

The settlers’ simple decision to be intentionally grateful led to centuries of Americans doing the same every November.  Let’s be real though.  In some seasons of life, being grateful is just plain hard.  We find ourselves overwhelmed with circumstances and underwhelmed with relationships.  With preoccupied minds and aching hearts, it goes against our nature to give thanks anyway.  But that’s exactly what the Lord asks of us.

"Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."  - 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NLT) 

It is not easy to give thanks in every circumstance.  But when we choose to thank God in the midst of difficulty, it defeats the forces of darkness in the spiritual realm.  When we thank God for every gift He has given us even when things are hard, the enemy loses the battle against us.  He is stopped in his tracks when we come to God with a thankful heart.

Learn to be thankful for every blessing from God in your life.  It is of great significance to Him if in the midst of great trials, we can be thankful.  There is a way of looking at life from the standpoint of eternity.  The reality of eternal life and eternal glory that far exceeds this life is a priceless treasure.  Our afflictions are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 

Wishing a warm and Happy Thanksgiving to our WHBC family – Lloyd, Michael, and Tracy