I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving Day. I know many of you spent it alone, and that it may be discouraging. Family is important for all of us.
We also know there are always many who don’t have family get-togethers over the holidays, and this year a lot of people now know what that is like.
The day or the location, or whom you are with, does not have to determine the level of your Thanksgiving. God says to give thanks in all things. As I said last week, be sure to give God the thanks, honor and service He deserves.
I also want to thank God’s helpers, the many people who serve our community in so many ways. These people are God’s hands and feet.
Now I want to speak to those who are fearful, those who are in the midst of a battle with the virus or depression or family conflict or family absence, or one of the many other battles being fought in our world today.
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God sees your need. God may have the answer just around the corner. God may be waiting for you to call on Him. God may be as close as your family, a friend or a church, but you need to make a call.
God has a phone number. “Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know’” (Jeremiah 33:1-3).
Jeremiah was in prison, and God spoke to him and encouraged him to call on the Lord. God still speaks today. God still does great and mighty things today. God still wants to show us things we don’t know.
The biggest reason people don’t learn new things is that they think they know it already. I have looked for a book on my bookshelf for many minutes and cannot see it because I had the wrong idea of what the cover looked like. People often think they know what God is like, but have not really given Him a chance to work in their life.
What if you just set aside all your ideas of what God is like and ask God to show you what He wants you to know about Him? God is not just a religious symbol; He is a real person who has real messages for us. God gave us His word the Bible and He will help us see Him in that book.
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and [b]mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).
Will you make that call?
Rev. Paul McKibben is pastor of Grace Community Church in Osage
