November arrives and our minds start to plan for the Thanksgiving feast, gathering with family and friends, and taking time to be grateful for God’s many blessings.
For many, this has been a particularly difficult year. Thanksgiving can serve as a time to direct your hearts back to God’s goodness amid the turmoil.
Psalms 103:2 reminds us “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits."
The word forget here in the Hebrew means to mislay, want of memory or attention, cause to forget. Life can deter us, overwhelm us to mislay or unintentionally lose our thankfulness. Memory of our blessings can be eroded and our attention on life can overwhelm any thankfulness possible.
The Psalmist instructs himself to “bless the Lord, O my soul.” While blessing the Lord, even when life is tough, he then reminds himself to “forget not ALL His benefits,”
How can the Psalmist do this in such hard times? God’s benefits reflect His character, so to bless the Lord was to adore, praise or thank Him for who He is. To forget not His benefits in Hebrew means God’s treatment, service or requital (something given in return, compensation, or retaliation), benefit, desert, deserving, that which he hath given, recompense, reward. This proclaims to me that God has His children’s back!
Thanksgiving can flow from a heart that is directed to God’s character and trust His love; who cry out to Him and choose to rest in Him.
This Thanksgiving season, I encourage you to take time to do as the Psalmist did and “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits”.