Fall. Today marks the “fall back” or end of Daylight Savings, we get an extra hour of sleep unless you live in Arizona. This year Fall has been more significant for me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve watched the season change through the bay window I sit in front of every morning as I do my morning prayers. Leaves changing colors, piles of them on the ground in my neighbors yard, and the cold frost that we now awake to every morning in Oregon. One of the jokes So Cal residents say is that there are no seasons in places like LA. It is true the weather is kept very temperate. Not too cold and not too hot, almost just right all year round. But with that amazing weather mediated by the ocean came the true fact there was very little change in seasons. So moving home to Oregon has reminded me just how much I missed change. 

There’s a lot of things I could write about regarding our move, the changes we made, the reasons we did, the oddness of moving during a global pandemic, and the new adventures we are up to. But this November I’ve decided to take time to write a gratitude blog. Obviously a blog in contrast to a journal is something I am sharing with others who may read it. So what do I hope for you as the reader? I hope you find in these thirty blog posts an invitation to enter a season of gratitude, of thanksgiving. Not just for a day, not just for a few minutes during your morning routine or as you fall asleep – but to truly see this as a season for thanks. 

I’ve read about how gratitude is a “parent virtue” in that it “gives birth” to other positive character traits and qualities. Want to be a good father or mother, friend or boss? Well gratitude can be a practice, that just like exercise, develops your good muscles and strengths to step into your life and relationships with grace. 

As a pastor and theologian I see gratitude’s positive quality (how the research points to being thankful toward other people in your life as bringing qualitative and correlative positive benefit) as something the Bible models and teaches us. The psalms are a great teacher, the Apostles are great teachers, and Jesus is the ultimate example. So for today, my first gratitude blog post I want to thank God for the Bible. I want to thank people in my life like my mom, my dad, my grandmother, mentors in seminary like Chap Clark and Mark Lau Branson, pastors in my life like Eric Dooley and Bryan Schackmann, and friends like Zach, DJ, Jack, Travis, Dusty, Garrett, Bryan, and Brendin who’ve taught the Bible to me. 

I read this morning Psalm 41 and Matthew 22:34-46. 

Psalm 41 is the end of the first “book” of the psalms (there are five parts). At the close is almost an editorial note of Psalm 41, probably was not actually part of the psalm itself but more of a closing to the collection of the first book in which it says

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

Psalm 41:13

We so often use church lingo only in church settings that it gets divorced from real application in our lives. What does “Praise be to the Lord” mean? Well praise practically speaking is most often poured out in recounting the good God has done for the people. How God has provided for or protected them. We praise God when we do as the old hymn says “count your many blessings.” Certainly when we praise other human beings we tell of their good qualities and qualifications. We tell of the great things they’ve accomplished, and then applause resound. I submit that when we praise someone, we are doing so out of gratitude and thankfulness for their efforts and character. The same goes for God. So when you sing “bless the Lord, oh my soul” or “Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him” consider getting a bit more specific. Praise God by thanking God for the blessings in your life. Let’s move praise and thanksgiving from churchy lingo into daily life – to live as practicing mystics. The mystics are Christians throughout history who have believed they encountered God and God spoke to them. I believe most often the real reason we fail to recognize or experience God speaking to us is because we are looking for God to speak in some spectacular other worldly way. Rather than supernaturally, I believe God speaks to us through the neighbor and friend, through the change of season, through the small ordinary good moments of our lives. 

So I respond with love and thanksgiving, and today I thank God for the reminders from Scripture like Psalm 41 and Jesus’ invitation to love God with our whole being – not just the religious/churchy part of my life but with everything. 

Thank you God for the Bible. 

REFLECT: 

1. What is the place of the Bible in your life? 
2. When was a time reading or studying the Bible was life-giving and positive? Why? 
3. When was a time reading or studying the Bible was a negative experience? Why? 
4. What is something from the Bible you are thankful for today?