Lately, the Lord has really been dealing with me on thanksgiving. Really it’s been about a straight year of Him actively teaching me about this topic and I kind of thought I had the hang of it until a couple of weeks ago when He asked me to start thanking Him for the things that are not in my life.

As a child of God, there are things that God daily keeps from entering your life and harming you. In Psalms 91 He says that He gives His angels charge over you lest you strike your feet on a stone. He also says again in Psalms 121 that He is your keeper, He keeps your life and He keeps you from all evil.

Sometimes it’s really easy to focus our prayers on the facts that we aren’t where we want to be yet or we still have healing to receive in certain areas that are causing us pain, and we forget to thank Him for the things that He has kept or removed from us. Whether it be harmful relationships, additional sickness, and pain, or just forgetting the things we’ve already been delivered and healed from that are no longer an issue in our lives.

I feel like a lot of God’s people have just moved out of a season of intense purging where the Lord removed and delivered us from so much junk. As we move forward let’s not get so caught up in the facts that we have more healing and deliverance to receive that it keeps us from the truth that He has already done SO much for us. Let’s take time to stop and from the heart thank Him for the miraculous power that He has already moved in on our behalf.

Let’s thank Him for the things we don’t have anymore and the burdens and issues that once seemed immovable that He has rendered null and void in His great love for us. In this season that focuses on giving thanks for everything we have, let’s also take a minute to thank Him for the things we don’t have that He’s removed from our lives because He cares for us.

Let’s take our thanksgiving to a deeper level and thank Him for everything He has done, everything He has not done, and everything He has yet to do. Let’s acknowledge today and thank Him for the loving Father that He is, that He is never passive towards us and for all the times He intentionally acts and does not act on our behalf.

Let’s not halfheartedly come before Him, but instead, take a true inventory of our lives and allow the exercise of thanks to draw us deeper in faith as we let God reveal Himself as the intentional Father that He is to us every day.

 

–Briana Lassiter is a wife, mother, blogger, and contributor to Ambo TV. This article originally appeared on the website.