Thursday, November 23, 2017

Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt

"in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV)

When I was a child, I used to read stories about pirates.  I was fascinated by the stories of these men who sailed the seas and captured ships and their cargoes.  But, what really caught my attention was stories of pirates' buried treasure.  Even though I grew up in the mid-western United States, as a young child I somehow thought that there might be pirate treasure somewhere near my home.  My goal was to find some of this treasure, and no matter how ridiculous the idea really was, I was continually looking for signs of lost treasure.  As you may have guessed I never found any treasure, but it was not because I didn't look for it.

We tend to find what we are looking for and see what we want to see.  The weather report may say that it is partly cloudy, but doesn't that also mean it is partly sunny?  You could be driving a long distance and think of how many miles you still have to travel, or you can look back at how far you have already come.  Rather than just looking at the negative side of things we can look for something good, something to be thankful for, in every situation.  For example, if we are stuck in traffic we can at least be thankful we have a car, or if there is a long line at the grocery store we can at least be thankful there is a good place where we can buy food.

If we were seeking a treasure we knew was buried somewhere, or if there was something of value that we had lost, we would look and look until we found it.  In the same way, if we will look for something to be thankful for in every situation, it is likely that we can find something.  If we will make it a habit to hunt for something to be thankful about, like we would hunt for lost valuables, it will help us and our attitude as well as in our interaction with other people.  There are many things that we experience in life that are not so good, but no matter what the situation, we can always look for something to be thankful for.

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