Post-turkey Check-in.

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."

- C.S. Lewis

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As we all wake up from the food comas, some of us not too long ago, probably only to sit down to devour our way to yet another food coma, we often beg the question "okay...what to do next?" Some maybe got up earlier or never even slept to hit the Black Friday market, which quite often ends up working off a lot of that holiday warmth we just built up (not to mention a couple of those holiday pounds too). As I sit here in my drafty apartment room, on my hardwood floor with a plate of pan-fried mashed potatoes and turkey rippings, I have to ask myself "am I still as thankful today as I was yesterday?" I read my Thanksgiving post from two years ago and I have to say I disagree with some of it; that is, I don't hate the fact that we take out one day a year to remember what we're thankful for. Even though year-long gratitude is imperative, it's no surprise that during that time, we forget here and there. So Thanksgiving is a great idea, not simply as a day for catch-up on our gratitudings, but moreso as a checkpoint to see what kind of progress we're making.

So what am I thankful for? I'm thankful for the same thing I'm thankful for on Christmas, Easter, and hopefully every single day increasingly: God's gift of salvation by grace in Jesus Christ.

That's where it starts, yet hardly where it ends. You see, if you believe that Jesus was sent by God to die on the cross for your sins, then immediately you give everything in your life a greater worth. For "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" That's the highest compliment you can give your loved ones and the things in your life. That they weren't just given arbitrarily to you by a thoughtless or distant God, but that they were given custom-fit with your name embroidered on their hearts by a person who cares about you so much that He's given you His most prized treasure to you, the one possession in this universe that He loves more than anything else...His very own son. That, my friends, is something you never stop giving thanks for.