Hey, welcome once again to our weekly podcast where we just try to encourage you and help you get your sights aligned to be better at business, to be better in your personal finances. Our podcast is Business, Money, and Christianity. We're a financial podcast, but from a faith perspective.
And today, here in the United States of America, is our big holiday, Thanksgiving. And so the month of November, people talk a lot about being thankful and realizing what you do have and your opportunities and how you possess life and being thankful for what you have. For me, it's a cornerstone of all things.
When you lose your thankfulness, you lose a lot of your focus. You lose, obviously, your gratitude. It's always about getting more.
And the interesting thing about getting more is that you can never satisfy that want. Once you move into the realm of, I always have to have more, I always have to have more, then we lose focus on who we are and we become machines for getting more. We lose our human element.
And I wanna encourage you today, maybe you're watching this from some other country in the world that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving holiday, is to stop and look at what you have to be thankful for. You know, in every difficult situation, in every struggle that we may find in our lives, there is always something to be thankful for. And when we focus on what we have, then it gives us an ability to fight for more.
Now, I mentioned just a minute ago about always wanting more. I'm a person that pushes for, I have a vision, a goal, where I'm trying to go, so I'm always pushing for more. But I'm not consumed about wanting more.
I do have to work on myself to pull myself back and look at what I have. Because once you have something, it's easy to take it for granted. And I've really been trying to work on myself this year to every day, no matter what the day brings, is to have that foundation of thankfulness in what we do.
Now, thankfulness is a very biblical topic. And in the context of the Bible, God created this for his son, this whole world, this whole system for his sons and his daughters. Yes, there's things that evil came in and has disrupted the plan of God, but we're still able to live a life that is an overcoming life.
I wanna read a verse to you. It's out of 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18. There's a key phrase in here that is just phenomenal if you can get this down.
And it says, in everything, give thanks. I'm not gonna read the rest of the verse. I wanna take this phrase.
In everything, give thanks. I want you to notice it didn't say, for everything, give thanks. See, we can go through something that we don't like, we're trying to get out of it.
It's a hard part in our life. We have the ability that in the middle of that, we can give thanks. And this is a premise of God, foundational within his word, that we've gotta keep ourselves thankful.
The apostle Paul in the Bible talked about whether he was abounding, everything's going good, everything's flowing in, or whether he was debased, everything's tightening up, it's not going through. I've learned to be content. Contentment and thankfulness have a working together that creates a power source in our life.
Don't ever lose sight of what you have. Even in the most difficult times, you might have family. Maybe you're going through a difficult financial time, but you have your health.
You have your kids. I know that even in the most difficult times, I have two daughters. A lot of times I will think about my daughters, because they're just such a blessing to my life.
I enjoy having them around, I enjoy being around them. They're just good people. And I'm so thankful for my daughters.
And so there's many things that we can be thankful for. People that believe in us, people that stand with us. Maybe money's tight in our business right now, but we are still going forward, and we're still afloat making things work.
Well, we wanna break through this, but we still have a vehicle that can produce any income that we need, and we'll get through this. I wanna read you another verse before I go. This is gonna be a short podcast today, because it is our holiday.
And so just from things on our end, we're not gonna spend a lot of time here, but we'll be back next week with a longer one. But this is found in the book of Philippians in the New Testament, chapter four, verse six. And it says, be careful for nothing.
In other translations, it says, be anxious for nothing. And this is, again, going back to the verse we just read, in everything, remain thankful. Don't allow the circumstances of life to bring anxiety on you.
Now, I know that medical science treats anxiety as a mental illness, and they like to give people pills to numb them up, but according to God, who created this whole system, anxiety is a choice. Be anxious for nothing. Don't allow anything to move you to the point of anxiety.
Well, my goodness, how in the world do we do that? Well, let's continue reading. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything. So again, like Thessalonians, it's not for everything.
It's in every situation that we may encounter by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is at the cornerstone. Now, we have another element here that as believers in God, we can cry out, pray, God, help me.
Show me how to do this. But in it, a cornerstone of our success and what we will do is found in being thankful in the situation. And the American holiday, if you're not familiar with it, it was for the settling of the United States, the pilgrims that came over and what we have received.
I'm blessed living in the United States, being born in the United States. It's not without its challenges, but I'm blessed by this. And so it doesn't matter how hard the day gets, there is a cornerstone of being blessed.
Well, you say maybe you're in a country that is very impoverished. There's still something to find to be thankful for. And in the middle of thanksgiving, it opens the door for God to do something special in our lives.
So I wanna encourage you, stay thankful, have a great day in this United States of America holiday of thanksgiving. We're feasting and enjoying family. I hope you have a great day too.
I'll see you next week. God bless you.
Comments
Post a Comment