God’s Kept Promises Free Me to be Thankful
God’s kept promises free me to be thankful. Secular psychologists have decided several things are essential: food, shelter, safety, belonging, accomplishment, and creativity. In these, they do not conflict with God’s word.
Let’s look at some assorted promises from Scripture about these essentials.
Psalm 37 is crammed with promises from beginning to end, but verses 23-25 deal with two items on the psychologists’ list. “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” There’s safety. As a person with a mobility handicap, these words are possibly more important to me than to others. Verse 25 reads this way: “I was young and now am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread.” I know by personal experience that this is also true. There might be more in my refrigerator or pantry during some weeks than others, but there has always been enough.
What about shelter and belonging?
Check out Psalm 16:1, 5-6, 9 and 10a: “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge…Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance…Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave…you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
Accomplishment and creativity are also covered in Ecclesiastes 2.
“A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink, and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see is from the hand of the Lord, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness….”
If you need more proof, there’s Proverbs 22:29. “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men.”
Job security? Yes, if I look for it: “Of the making of many books there is no end.”
God’s kept promises free me to be thankful for what I have, and to give thanks for the good things he gives others because everything I truly need is supplied.
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Ruth
Heidi Kortman
Ruth
Heidi Kortman