Happy Thanksgiving! Here are some articles and various other items from my web wanderings…

ARTICLES

“Look Through the Lens of Thanksgiving” Vaneetha Rendall Risner (Desiring God)

I know I should count my blessings, but sometimes it’s just easier to count my miseries. That comes more naturally. And miseries capture my thoughts and interrupt my days more readily than blessings. But counting my miseries seems to shrink my soul, and in the end I am more miserable than when I began.

“The True Story of Thanksgiving” David Mathis (Desiring God)

But for the Christian, the deepest roots of our thanksgiving go back to the Old World, way back before the Pilgrims, to a story as old as creation, with a two-millennia-old climax. It’s a story that keeps going right on into the present and gives meaning to our little lives, even when we’re a half a globe removed from history’s ground zero at a place called Golgotha.

“Some Questions About Thanksgiving” Erik Raymond (The Gospel Coalition)

As Christians we are not simply thankful in some generic sense; we are thankful to and for God in a particular, gospel sense.

PRAYERS FOR THANKSGIVING WEEK

Scotty Smith’s Heavenward blog is one of my favorite places on the entire internet. You really should regularly check it out or subscribe. Here is his prayer for today, the day before Thanksgiving Day.

Father, thank you for the common joys of life—our family traditions and favorite dishes; for the same old jokes and new glimpses of hope; for the burdens we bear and the longings we share; for the “more” we all want, and the fullness you alone can give. READ MORE HERE.

Check out more prayers for Thanksgiving Week HERE.

MUSIC

Andrew Peterson, “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone?”

Chris Rice, “And Your Praise Goes On”