Thankful Challenge in the Thankful Season

One person. Everyday. One note. Email, facebook message, text, and yes even snail mail still works. 

Tell them how thankful you are for them. 

How they impacted your life.

How they pushed you into further trust in God because of how he used them in your life.  

I have chosen my 30. I could choose 300. Especially over the last couple years where I have so much more clearly seen the weaving of my story. To my peeps; whether you realize it or not, you were a part of my pace team pushing me to run the race that is set before me.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-3

As you embark on this challenge maybe for you if it's one person a week. I pray right now as this goes out that your hearts demeanor will start to transform into a whole new surrender and trust in his faithfulness. That by naming the people he has used to change you, you will see more of him. My hope is that this will open up my eyes more to look carefully at those in my path ahead and the way he is already using them to encourage me in my journey. I can look back over my life and see his light in the faces of some that showed up. And in the next 30 days ahead I am going to thank them for it, because I think there are some people who have never heard my side of the story.

I don't have it all together and this life is still hard for me. I don't just praise him because he's healed me but I praise him for the storm and for changing me. I am thankful for his perfect and intricate weaving of what I want to call worst when it turns into his great praises and knowing he is best. 

Maybe someone has pained you, but just maybe that person had a role in your pain creating an empty place that Christ filled. So you are ultimately thankful for how God used them to change you. We are not thankful for the circumstances but we are thankful for God who is unchanging in our circumstances. His faithfulness to love us is enough to know he is good.

Maybe you could wirte 15 people a day, maybe then you should. Maybe your overflowing thankfulness is just what will carry you when your storm comes. Maybe by you naming the people who have helped shaped you. One day they will write you to tell you how your note was what pushes them further into complete surrender.

"Gratitude is a virtue most worthy of our cultivation. Indeed, in all the Christian life, gratitude is to be planted, watered, dressed, and harvested. Gratitude gets at the very essence of what it means to be created, finite, fallen, redeemed, and sustained by the God of all grace." David Mathis

Ok ready, out of our comfort zones we go,.... set, Go. For HIS glory we name HIS goodness. Share if you want. Encourage others also, to be thankful for the people that have been a part of His changing us. #thankfulforYOU

If I had to name my greatest lesson in suffering it is learning the discipline of naming the things that I can be thankful for. It has changed me. 

So this year I'm thankful for the people.
The people HE loved first so that they could love me.
Maybe they don't even know his deep love for them yet, but I know how he used them to show his love to me.

I will share throughout this month some of the notes I have written to some of the people that have pushed me further into his trust. I will also share some of my greatest finds on how to learn the discipline of a thankful heart. Where it is born, and where my motivation lies.

“I was angry and frustrated with God, and honestly still struggle today to fight for my joy in him. However, time to heal and meditation on the Bible have led me to believe that not all good things are easily seen with our eyes, but with the sobering of our hearts. You cannot simply understand the weight of God’s power and control until all has been taken from you for his glory. What a terrifying thing it is to fall into the hands of a sovereign God (Hebrews 10:31), yet what a comfort there is to know, by faith, that his sovereign ruling is for our good because of his unfailing love for his people.” Phillip Holmes