From the Pastor’s Desk

Samuel Wright Ministries
Mid-week Manna
Wednesday, November 20, 2024

“Give thanks with a grateful heart”

Thanksgiving Day 2024 is a week away. Some of us will travel varying distances to connect with family and friends. Others are eagerly awaiting the afternoon football games. Sadly, there will those who have nowhere to go, no family to see. No financial means to indulge in an expensive meal.

The range of emotions during the holidays range from euphoria to exhaustion, from delight to depression.

If we are saved, if we are in the land of the living, if God has been so kind as to allow us one more day, we ought to be thankful, grateful, appreciative; and despite our reasons for being cast down, jubilant. Easier said than done when life has not been kind. It is a challenge when bereavement overshadows our personal landscapes; when brokenness is our breakfast,
loneliness is on the menu for lunch, and depression is our main course for dinner and defeat is dessert!

So, what do we do? How can we overcome the malaise that is designed to keep us from seeing the big picture? How can we rejoice in the midst of a depraved world system?

The answer is in the Word of God: the Bible. The resources are in our personal journeys.

 Reflect on God’s goodness.
 Think about how He has preserved us, in spite of life’s challenges.
 Remember how the Lord made a way of escape, a way over the hills and through the valleys.
 Don’t forget how God made a way where there seemed to be no way!

The Psalmist wrote: My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. (Psalm 45: 1)

Finally beloved, Paul summed it up in his letter to the church at Philippi.

“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever
things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any
virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things” Philippians 4: 8 NKJV

Give the Lord thanks, with a grateful heart!