Try a New Spin on Thankfulness This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is in two days.

This sent a jolt of panic just now through those of you hosting family gatherings! Will there be sufficient room in the oven? Did I buy enough potatoes? Will everyone get along?  

Others are reading these words in a busy airport, navigating stress and crowds in order to spend the holiday with loved ones.

Still others felt warm inside just now because Thanksgiving—and the moment it provides to pause and thank God for all He has done—is your very favorite holiday.

What if we prepared our hearts for Thanksgiving in a slightly different way this year? What if we thanked God for all we don’t even know He has done? There are innumerable ways God has protected us that we have never seen. Psalm 91:11 says God commands His angels to guard us! I like the NLT version, which says:

              “For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.”

As a parent prevents a toddler from getting burned or running into traffic that his little eyes simply do not see, so our God so often protects us, and dispatches His angels to guard us. Yes, we have had heartbreaks and injuries and distress in this broken world—Jesus told us those would come—but think about how many we never had to face simply because He protected or rerouted us with His good, guiding hand.

This idea is the subject of the Day 14 devotion in my latest devotional book Find Hope , which I’m sharing with you in full below as a Thanksgiving encouragement from me to you. May you “find hope” in a God who is always active on your behalf. And perhaps this year around your Thanksgiving tables, you can even spend a few minutes imagining all that God has protected you from that you haven’t been able to see.

Enjoy!

How Do You Know He Hasn’t?

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. (Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV)

When you’re a public speaker, losing your voice is a problem. And in 2019, for the first time in fifteen years, I showed up for a marriage event with complete laryngitis—I could barely whisper. Even worse, although he was able to hide it, Jeff was miserable from a bad cold. We usually lead marriage retreats together, but the entire weekend was going to be on his feverish shoulders.

We had prayed for healing, and our hopes were dashed. I hated Jeff having to carry everything and hated disappointing the attendees and the event organizers, who were close friends. If I’m being really transparent, I was also sad that the retreat center itself was not seeing us at our best, since we’d hoped they might invite us to lead several marriage retreats the next year.

You’ve probably had hopes dashed, too. You desperately prayed for your restaurant to bring in enough revenue this weekend but it didn’t happen. You tried so hard to stay off the layoff list but got the pink slip anyway.

This is often our cry: Why doesn’t God stop these bad things from happening?!

That disappointing weekend, this thought dropped into my heart: How do you know He hasn’t?

Suddenly, God brought to mind fifteen years of events that had never before been interrupted. I thought of many events where I’d been under the weather but had miraculous energy when I walked onstage. With a jolt, I realized that although this situation was awkward, it was happening at a marriage event for close friends who would lead attendees to handle it with humor and grace. If this was going to happen, I probably would have chosen it to be at this event. (With apologies to our friends!)

How do you know He hasn’t? God clearly has stopped bad things from happening time and time again in our lives. As I began tallying up the visible ways God had protected us, rather than the ways He hadn’t, the list expanded. Perhaps He had prevented things like car accidents, disease, heartbreak, tragedy. Wait … perhaps? Given that the enemy circles like a roaring lion in order to devour us (I Peter 5:8), it is almost certain that God has prevented a host of devastating problems that we will not know about until heaven.

Guess what happens when we begin thinking on that, friends? The only thing that is dashed is despair! Because gratitude and hope are built.

Shaunti’s “Find” devotionals make great Christmas gifts! Elegant, succinct, and scriptural, these books are filled with daily, a-ha moments that inspire lasting change. The newest title, Find Hope, released in 2024, joins Find Joy (perfect for Christmas), Find Peace (perfect for moms) and her bestselling title in the series, Find Rest.

If you are interested in having Shaunti bring research-based strategies, practical wisdom and biblical principles to your next event, please contact Nicole Owens at [email protected].

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