West Main

IN  GRATITUDE

You are the Christ and ever will be

All Your Word has promised me –

My Saviour, my Guide, my personal Friend,

My Counsellor, Comforter, Love without end.

You are the expression of Perfect Love,

My free Gift of Grace from above.

Grace that flows freely, whatever my sin,

Grace to change whatever I’ve been.

Come in, Christ, as Lord of my life.

Cleanse my heart of self and strife.

Raised to new life, my sinful aims dead,

Forgiven and free! You stand in my stead!

In gratitude, Lord, for all You have done,

I want to be whole, with You become one.

In gratitude, Lord, for all You will do,

I offer myself forever to You.

The harvest is ready, the fields are white.

Lord, teach me to labor, reflecting Your Light.

Others to serve, whatever the need,

One with You, in word and deed.

– Mary Kilburn

REMEMBER TO GIVE THANKS

When I hear Christmas carols play the day after Halloween I always roll my eyes.  From the moment Halloween ends we are thrust into the Christmas season.  We go from “Trick or Treat” to “Seasons Greetings” in the blink of an eye.  Wasting no time at all, retail giants in our land roll out their Christmas inventory, and with good reason.  Americans spend more than $400 billion every year on Christmas.  As the logic goes, the more time we have to spend money, the more money we will spend.

Over the next six weeks Americans will attempt to keep up with the madness of the Christmas season.  Parties. Traveling. Shopping. Decorating.  When all is said and done, we’ll just be happy to have survived another Christmas season.  We’ll be left to look for Jesus under the trash of tinsel, light and empty eggnog cartons.

The only speed bump in the mad dash toward Christmas Day is Thanksgiving – the forgotten holiday.  For many, the fourth Thursday in November is a quick breather in the middle of an insanely busy season.  Our passion for Christmas has caused us to ignore Thanksgiving.  The real tragedy, however, is that we have lost the meaning behind the holiday.  Thanksgiving is now more synonymous with gluttony than gratitude.

Our ability to overlook Thanksgiving and rush toward Christmas may be more than just “the way it is” in our country.  It seems to be a symptom of a condition we live with every day.  We have an insatiable lust for more, which exposes our thanklessness for what we already have.

I can honestly say I do not know many who could be characterized by gratitude  – and I include myself in that.  Our closets overflow with clothes, our refrigerators brim with food and our bank accounts have money sitting around gaining interest; even still, the words, “thank you” are often not heard.  We have collectively come to the place where we believe having excess is normal.

Even worse are the moments when we fool ourselves into believing we’ve earned what we have, so we deserve what we have.  Beyond this, what we have is rarely enough.  How easily we forget that every gift we have comes from our generous heavenly Father.  We experience these gifts every day, rarely taking a moment to say, “Thank you.”

It’s no wonder we skip over a holiday focused on thankfulness, and focus on a holiday that has become an unfortunate expression of wanting more.  It’s how we live every day.  It’s time we work together to change this, and it ought to begin with us.

This doesn’t mean we have to wait to play Christmas music until after Thanksgiving.  What it does mean is that we would do well to spend time between now and Thanksgiving focused on gratitude for all we’ve been given.

If we can do this, we just might find we will want less come Christmas day.  This is the gift of gratitude.  When we take a moment to say, “thank you,” we are finally able to see all we have been given.  This will allow us to enter the Christmas season with a grateful heart rather than an expectation of getting more.

One small step we can take together for the next two weeks until Thanksgiving is to spend time each day saying, “thank you,” to our Father in heaven.  Many use Facebook this month to express their thankfulness daily for one blessing in life.  Let’s be thankful!  I invite you to do the same so we can share in one another’s thankfulness.  This is just a small way we can refocus and remember all we have been given and express proper gratitude to the God who has given it to us.

And once we have thanked God for all He’s given us, we can continue by celebrating Christmas, thanking God for sending His son to earth for us.

– Michael Hidalgo

Relevant Magazine

Confident Speaking  --  Believe it or not, the number one fear of Americans is the fear of public speaking. It even supercedes the fear of death and dying. The greatest tool to overcome this fear is confidence in your ability to prepare and deliver your message powerfully and accurately. The Confident Speaking Workshop is designed to help you do just that. This two-day workshop will teach you how to develop, outline, and effectively deliver a message that resonates with your hearers. Please come join us on December 6 and 7 in the Fireside from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. each day. The leader is Nathan Lake; cost is $39.95. Please contact Nathan if you would like to enroll. Please see the complete list of subjects on our church Facebook page.