One of the main holidays within the United States is Thanksgiving Day. The modern national celebration dates to 1863 and it has been linked further back than that to the Pilgrims’ 1621 harvest festival. The holiday generally revolves around giving thanks with the centerpiece of most celebrations being a Thanksgiving dinner.
Although prayers and thanks were probably offered on the 1621 harvest gathering, the primary recorded religious Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth happened two years later in 1623. On this occasion, the colonists gave because of God for rain after a two-month drought.
In a farming society, this could be seen as a really extreme and difficult time since everyone’s livelihood was dependent upon farming.
In the fashionable day, it’s difficult for the typical person to know what a two-mouth drought would do to your psyche, life, relationships, funds, and outlook on life. Having grown up on a dairy farm in Kentucky, I can recall personally the challenges that got here from two-month droughts. If the rain doesn’t come at the precise time, the rain that comes on the fallacious time doesn’t initially make a difference within the final result of that yr’s crop. Matter of fact, if it rained on the fallacious time, it might be just as devastating to the final result of the harvest because the drought was.
Thanksgiving Day is a time to take inventory of what we’re thankful to God for. It is a time of looking inward and outward and asking ourselves if we’re growing in thankfulness or allowing ourselves to grow bitter that the “rain didn’t come after we wanted it to or when we would have liked it to”.
It jogs my memory of the story of Lazarus within the Gospel of John. Lazarus died. Jesus waited to send the rain so to talk that might heal Lazarus. Because of this, Lazarus died. Then Jesus showed up. John 11:5 says Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but still he waited to indicate his love until Lazarus had died. Maybe you possibly can relate this Thanksgiving season. Maybe you must be thankful to Jesus, but you are feeling like he waited too long to do anything concerning the drought in your life and now any rain he would send won’t matter.
Jesus engages Martha and Mary. Up to this time, Jesus had rebuked Martha because she wanted assist in the kitchen to make Thanksgiving Day dinner and all Mary desired to do was sit on the feet of Jesus, learn from Him, and wash His feet together with her hair. The glory of a lady is her hair. It’s hard to reconcile God’s delay within the drought when we’ve got given Him the glory due Him and He leaves us out to dry.
John 11: 2a says, “It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet together with her hair.” What humility! What love! Maybe you possibly can relate. You trusted Jesus. You gave Him the very best of who you might be. You gave Him your glory. You washed His feet with the very best of your life, and He has repaid you by showing up late to the drought of your heart.
All this modified Mary’s heart on the death of her brother Lazarus. Jesus showed up after the death of Lazarus and Mary was nowhere to be found. Her grief over the death of her brother had killed her desire to be with Jesus, much less be grateful for Him. Drought in the center has a way of doing this to our desire to be thankful.
John 11:20 says, “So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the home.” No Thanksgiving Day for her this yr with Jesus! Jesus can wash his own feet to any extent further so far as she is worried. She gave Jesus her best and He didn’t return the favour, so it seemed.
Martha goes to inform Jesus that her brother wouldn’t have died had Jesus been there. Jesus tells her in John 11:23, “Your brother will rise again.” He assures her the drought of this life doesn’t resolve the harvest to return. The amount of rain coming when it’s purported to doesn’t dictate the spiritual harvest God has for our lives if we trust in Him. Jesus says to Martha in John 11:25, “I’m the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live.” What a ravishing, hopeful, thankful thing to deal with this Thanksgiving Day season.
The drought of your heart doesn’t dictate the harvest of your soul, because of Jesus.
Martha replies in John 11:27, “Yes, Lord; I think that you just are the Christ, the Son of God, who’s coming into the world.”
Do you?
Look what happens in John 11:28, “Then after she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is looking for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.”
Isn’t that cool? Jesus knew Mary was hurting. He might have been offended by her unwillingness to be thankful to Him in a time of grief, but that isn’t who Jesus is. Jesus all the time loves. He is sweet and His love endures eternally. I even have learned through the years that there are two things I’m most thankful for on daily basis and particularly this Thanksgiving Day. Those two things are: 1) Jesus is sweet and a pair of) His love endures eternally. My wonderful wife, Tosha, reminded us of those two things at our annual church-wide Thanksgiving Dinner this past week at Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs.
God’s goodness and His love will outlast the drought of your heart. Can I encourage you this Thanksgiving Day season? Be thankful. I believe King David said it best in his song of Thanksgiving in 1 Chronicles 16:8,24: “Give because of the Lord and proclaim His greatness. Let the entire world know what He has done. Give because of the Lord, for He is sweet; His faithful love endures eternally.”
God’s goodness and His love will outlast the drought of your heart and can bring a harvest in your soul. He guarantees! Even if He is late to your harvest, wait for Him! Because just like the resurrection of Lazarus after having been dead 4 days, whatever the timing of His rain, it would be the gamechanger.
While you wait for Jesus’ rain in your life, remember, “He is sweet, and His love endures eternally!” The harvest is coming! By faith praise Him for it now. Happy Thanksgiving!
