As we find our way through this fall season, the colors show through all around us. There are the colors of the maples and aspens. There are vibrant colors and muted colors. If you drive out a little bit, you see fields of such beauty: fields of corn, of beans, fields of wheat and sorghum. Each of the fields have been cultivated to produce the beauty you behold. The soil has been turned at just the right time. The seeds have been planted and fertilized. It has all taken care, such care and partnership with humans and God. God has given such growth and has brought such productive beauty. Soon (and even now) it will be all harvested to go out and bless the world. It will very directly feed this world near and far.

It is not one bit accidental that we are coming into a season of thankfulness. Soon, Thanksgiving Day will be upon us, but this harvest season is a season of thanks.

I invite you now to cultivate gratitude in your life. Turn the soil of your heart from which such wonders grow. Plant even the tiniest seeds of thankfulness in your thoughts, in your mind, and nurture them to grow.

You and I can begin doing this by even noticing the blessing around us. Notice your breath. Go ahead and take in a deep one. Consider the wonders at work in your lungs and through your bloodstream to keep your cells replenished with oxygen. Consider the sights both grand and small arrayed before you. Even your wondrous hand and the swirls of the prints on your fingers have such complexity genius of design in and through. There are surgeons and artists who spend years trying to understand this wonder. And that is just your hand! Look around just now and consider what is around you.

Think about the people that find their place in your heart, the ones who matter to you. Think about the personalities, the grins, the ways that you have been blessed through others.

This kind of noticing—this kind of thinking—brings together your heart and you mind. It brings them both before God in such a sense of wonder. I invite you to let this grow in you—to let thankfulness deepen roots in you so much that from you grows such blessings.

I invite you to, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

May You Be Blessed to Know the Wonders of God’s Love For YOU!

Pastor Rhodie