“Lord, help me to focus on the important things today and not the urgent things.”

I hear and read cute little saying all over Facebook and Twitter and just about everywhere else every day.  They often bring a wistful smile or chuckle and I do enjoy reading them.  However, that little saying above was not something I read but something that I heard Dr. David Jeremiah say recently while listening to his television program.  I must say that this short little statement hit me like a ton of bricks!

First, let’s take a look at the definitions of important and urgent.  Important is defined as “of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.” The word urgent is defined as “a state or situation requiring immediate action or attention.”

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.” This scripture verse is in 1 Chronicles 16:34.  As we enter into this season of Thanksgiving and the day that this world sets aside and calls Thanksgiving Day, we should certainly all take a moment to reflect upon all of the blessings that God has given us.  The question is; just what should we be giving thanks to the Lord for?

For many years I reflected on Thanksgiving Day of all the wonderful things that God had given me.  You know what I mean, I thanked Him for the nice car that I drove, the nice house that I lived in, the well-paying job that had and so on and so forth.  Now, please understand that there is nothing wrong with these things.  I am still grateful to God for each of them and grateful that He has entrusted me with some pretty nice stuff here on this earth!  For all of the material things that God has given us, we should be thankful.

However, is that really the most important thing we should be thankful for on Thanksgiving?  Of course not!  So, what else should we be thankful for?  Should we be thankful for our families and friends?  Well, I certainly am thankful for my family and friends.  The past twelve months have seen just about everything for me.  I have experienced sadness, loss, heartache, experienced remorse for things I have said and done and wished like everything I could take them back.  However, in the past few months I have experienced a spiritual renewal like I never dreamed possible as God has blessed me far more than I deserve or ever dreamed He would again.  Through all of this, there have been many family members and friends that have stood by me through good times and bad.  I could not be more thankful for them than I am this year and I sure do look forward to spending time with them this Thanksgiving and for many, many more!

People who know me well know that I tend to find humor in life fairly easily!  It might help that “things” just happen to me!  As you likely know if you read my columns, I recently moved.  Well, I moved to a very nice townhouse in a beautiful setting with many trees and ponds.

About a month after I moved in, I had to take a bag of garbage to the community dumpster.  I decided to walk and take a short cut across the lawn where I quickly disposed of the bag in the dumpster.  After doing that, I turned around to walk back to my home.

I write several of my articles about life and things that happen to me or on insights that God reveals to me through studying His Word or just living every day in this world.  One thing that has always struck me on this earth is that we, as Christians, deal with the very same things that people of the world do.  How we deal with them is what is different.  I was reminded of that once again this morning.

I worked the night shift at my job last night and I got out of work at 7:00 AM.  For those of you who have worked a night shift before, you probably know that you are thinking about two things when you get out of work … breakfast and sleep!  You are not thinking about your car not starting!  That is precisely what happened to me this morning!