We Give Thanks- Day 11

Day 11 already!

God is so faithful.

Thanksgiving has been so good for my heart. It has helped me fix my gaze on who matters- Jesus.

As the year winds down to a close, it’s easy to get sucked into a rabbit hole of regret, pain and ingratitude over the things that didn’t go how we wanted. For some reason, it’s easy for our minds to fixate on what didn’t work, rather than what worked and what is working.

There’s a yoruba proverb that says- ‘Beru ba monu ro ni. A dupe’. It roughly translates to ‘If a servant thinks deeply; he or she will give thanks.’

Sometimes, the reason we do not give thanks is because we don’t think about things the Lord has done. We don’t engage in a conscious practice of remembrance. We expect that our minds will randomly remember things, but human psychology doesn’t work that way. This is why God instructed Joshua to lead the Israelites to set up a memorial at Gilgal, so they and their descendants would always remember the victory God wrought for them at Jericho.

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and command them: ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan where the priests were standing, carry them with you, and set them down in the place where you spend the night.’ ”

So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ you are to tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters were cut off.’ Therefore these stones will be a memorial to the Israelites forever.”

Thus the Israelites did as Joshua had commanded them. They took up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each tribe of Israel, just as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them to the camp, where they set them down.

Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant stood. And the stones are there to this day. Joshua 4:1-9

We are going to build a memorial of 2023. For the next few days, we will consciously engage in acts of remembrance and thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving prompt: Write a list of things that happened in the month of January that you are grateful for. Try to be as specific as possible. You can go through your camera roll to help you jog your memory a little bit. You can also read through your journal if you keep one. You’d be so surprised at the wonderful things God did for you that you have simply forgotten.

I advice that you journal your thanksgiving, it will help you engage in it more consciously, and in 50 days, you will have a record of gratitude. You can play the song below as you journal.

As always, please share with a friend!