956 - 965.

Stealing from Ann Voskamp again ...

The first time thanksgiving is ever mentioned in Scripture, this is what we discover about first about thanksgiving:

“And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the LORD.
If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil.
With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with loaves of leavened bread….”   ~ Leviticus 7:11-13

The thanksgiving offering was part of the peace offering and that is the thing:
No one receives the peace of God without giving thanks to God.

Thankfulness is the deep, contented breath of Peacefulness.

Is this why He asks us to give thanks even when things look a failure? When there doesn’t seem much to give thanks for?

There were to ten offerings of bread in every Thank-offering of the Israelites.

The first were like crackers. The second like wafers. These were known for their thinness. This was the order of thanks.

The thanks began for the thin things, the wafer things that almost weren’t, and the way to give thanks for the people of God is first to give thanks for even the meager and unlikely.

Then it came, thanks for the leavened bread. Why leaven, yeast, that seen in Scripture as impure, unwanted, as part of the thanksoffering?

Authentic thanks is always for all things, because our God is a God kneading all things into a bread that sustains. Paul gave “glory in tribulations” (Ro. 5:13) and took “pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake” (2 Cor. 12:10), and he knew that which didn’t look like anything good might yield good, all in the hand of a good God.

To bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving means to sacrifice your understanding of what is beneficial and thank God for everything because He is benevolent.

A sacrifice of thanks lays down our perspective and raises hands in praise anyways – always.

A sacrifice is by definition not an easy thing.

There is this: We give thanks to God not because of how we feel – but because of Who He is.

He who is grateful for little is given much laughter… and it’s counting the ways He loves, this is what multiplies joy.


And the life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.

Why don’t I keep an eye on the number of His graces? Why don’t I want to know that even though it doesn’t seem like there’s been enough rain, He reigns and He is enough and the bounty is greater than it appears?

That the thin places might be the places closest to God and the skinny places might be fuller than they seem and who isn’t full with Christ?

956. sleepless nights that remind me that my perspective is seriously limited
957. friends who pray
958. flying home
959. family game of Scrabble (and losing AGAIN!)
960. watching Everwood with the fam
961. familiarity of home
962. those thin places that are consuming my life are closer to God
963. trusting HIM for what I do not see and do not understand
964. rainy days
965. time off