Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Psalm 16:5-6
Happy Thanksliving Week! No that is not a typo, that word Thanksliving is in my opinion what the heart of this week is really about. I believe that having a heart of gratitude in general is one of the keys to living a fulfilled life.
Your Lot
I was looking for a version of this scripture that might make it easier to understand. However because there are a couple of real noteworthy words in this passage, I would rather just explain how I believe they are significant to Thanksliving. That word lot means our portion or our destiny. I think of it in terms of our little slice of life. It is the stuff that God has entrusted us with at this time. With God in our lives, no matter where we are, how big or small out lot is, we can be grateful in it.
I am annoyingly excited and intentionally positive about the holidays. I know this is a time of year that the enemy or just how you can feel about your life in general, can rob people of the beauty of contentedness.
There are a variety of reasons people don’t enjoy the holidays:
- Comparison of what their lot looks like against other people’s lives.
- Sadness about what or who we may have lost and those changes have impacts on how the holidays feel.
- Financial frustrations because we can’t afford to celebrate it how we would like to, or have had the capacity to do so in the past.
- Being separated from your family on the holidays.
Your Pleasant Places
When we can separate how we feel from what we know is true, most of us can look at our lives and see how we have been given our own pleasant places. I am not talking about physical locations. God has blessed us and kept us through dark days, losses, gains, and even with material possessions. Even if your lot or your portion is not to the standard that you would like, it is probably magnificent in comparison to someone else’s life.
Pleasant places is being able to see the goodness in where you are right now and live with a heart of gratitude. That is Thanksliving. Being content while you are yet working on getting your life to the next level. It is having a mindfulness that God inhabits praise. Complaining and praise don’t occupy the same space. When we cultivate an atmosphere for God to sit in, more of that goodness can be released.
Delightful Inheritance
Our life and legacy will live on after we are gone. We will either be remembered by adding value to our world or taking it away. I want to be remembered as a person who was full of the love and peace of God. I want to be remembered as a life that created atmospheres for happiness to spill over to other people.
I hope that as you celebrate Thanksgiving this week that you would be able to see that your lot, is secured by God. He has filled it with pleasant places. Your little (or big) slice of life, can be as beautiful and rewarding as your outlook is about it. I hope your week and holiday is wonderful and that you know, really know that God has great and wonderful things planned for your life. I love you all!
Let me leave you with one of my favorite blessings.
Numbers 6:24-26
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.