The Lost Holiday...

At church we sing a chorus that goes like this...

Thanks, thanks, I give you thanks

for all you've done.

I am so blessed,

my soul has found rest,

Oh Lord, I give you thanks.

Whew, the holidays are upon us once again.  My oh my how time FLIES when you are having fun!  It's true that time never stands still and the older I get the more I realize just how short life truly is. The years just seem to be slipping away. 

Every year it seems as if Christmas comes earlier and earlier, perhaps it's the hustle and bustle of life, but more than likely it's because the stores start stocking their shelves with Christmas goods shortly after Labor Day.  In recent years this little tradition of theirs has started bothering me.  Why, you might ask?  Well, because a very important holiday, Thanksgiving, has been lost in the shuffle. It has been gobbled up and lost somewhere between Halloween and Christmas.  Commercialism has eaten up Thanksgiving.

Even on the homefront more and more folks are decorating their homes for Christmas before Thanksgiving has even arrived.  People everywhere are making sure to deck the halls for Ol' Saint Nicks arrival but have made no arrangements to be thankful to the Almighty God. 

Of course, this should be no surprise to believers as the bible says that in the last days an unthankful generation would emerge (2 Tim. 3:1-5).  Folks, we have made it to the last days!  If there has ever been a more unthankful generation, it's this one, and I'm not just talking about forgetting the Thanksgiving holiday.  I am talking about just plain ol' unthankfulness.  Just as the stores have pushed Thanksgiving out of the way, so have people pushed thankfulness to God out of their hearts.

There was a day when folks sat down at the dinner table every evening and gave thanks for the blessings of the day, but sadly those days are long gone in most homes, and now it's getting harder and harder to find folks who will even stop and take just one day out of their lives to give thanks to a loving God who gave them that life. 

Oh sure, everyone anticipates a day or two off work and a big turkey dinner, but do they really stop and take the time to be thankful for God's many bountiful blessings anymore, or is their attitude of thankfulness merely a greasy chuckle of a prayer that says, "Thank ya Lord, Thank ya Lord for this food, over the lips and through the gums, watch out stomach here it comes."

True thankfulness is a lifestyle and should be observed everyday, but at the very least one day a year should be set aside for the giving of thanks to our creator.

This year let's resurrect a lost holiday... THANKSGIVING...and instead of just giving thanks for a nice dinner, how about taking the day and a significant amount of time on your knees to recount God's MANY blessings on your life. 

In EVERY THING give thanks:

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning YOU.

                            1 Thess. 5:18

Mother/Daughter Banquet

This get together is usually held in honor of Mother's Day, but I suppose you could have one at any time during the year, even perhaps around the holidays. 

A Mother/Daughter Banquet is just that...A banquet to honor mothers and their daughters and that special bond they share between each other.

A Mother/Daughter banquet can have whatever theme you like, examples include:

A Shopping theme
A Floral theme
A Garden theme
Shoes and Purses theme
Southern Belle theme
High Tea

or any number of other themes so long as it is "girly".

Choose a date, place and time for this banquet.  Choose a theme and hand out invitations that go along with the theme you have chosen. 

Ask each lady to bring a dish or if your budget allows, have it catered.  If you are having the ladies bring food you will want to include that information on their invitations.  You might also note on the invitation that this is a formal event and to dress appropriately (not necessarily evening gowns but no casual attire).

Decorate the hall according to the theme you have chosen.   Remember that no matter what theme you have chosen, this is a formal event.  You will want to set each table with nice linens and a centerpiece that coordinates with your theme. 

This event usually has a special speaker or someone to talk about the special bond between a mother and daughter.  Most times this is a Christian based banquet and the speaker touches on the importance and responsibility of a mother to raise her daughter in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and also the daughters responsibility of learning and listening to her mother's instruction.  However, this type of thing is not required.

The most important thing is to get mothers and their daughters together to celebrate womanhood.

You might want to play a few games and give away a few door prizes.

Some door prizes might be given to the oldest mother, the youngest mother, the mother with the most children, etc. or you could choose to give a small party favor to each person in attendance.  Your choice.

Suggestion:  Since this is a formal affair, you could use some of the young men of your church or some of the ladies sons to be waiters for the evening.   Of course, they would also need to be dressed appropriately.  White shirt, black slacks.

Getting Your Spiritual Eyesight

Start with Prayer---

GETTING YOUR SPIRITUAL EYESIGHT

　

Sometimes it seems the odds are stacked against us. The situation or situations has more impossibilities than possibilities. Everything and everyone is against us. Even your very friends are treating you less than friendly. Nothing goes right at all. Your life is a shambles. Fear settles in. Anxiety overrides every other emotion. It seems as if there is no end of the turmoil in sight. There seems to be no possibility of any sort of resolution in your crisis.

Have you ever felt this way? It doesn’t matter what the situation; it could include health problems, school problems, problems at home. Either way, things keep stacking up and before long you feel overwhelmed. It's probable that each of us have some situations right now in our lives that seem impossible, overwhelming and never ending. (Teacher, open this up for discussion now):

Whatever the situation may be, you just can’t see how things are going to work out and that right there is the problem! It’s not the situation, it’s that we just can see the outcome, so we panic. We just can’t see how everything is going to work out or that everything is going to be alright. The reason being is that we are just not seeing through our spiritual eyes. We need to look into the mirror of the word in order to see properly.

Let’s take a look into that mirror right now and see what happened to some people who felt overwhelmed and outnumbered by a particular situation.

2 Kings 6:8-20—Elisha’s servant was scared. They were surrounded and there was no end of the enemies encamped around about them. However, God opened the servant’s spiritual eyes that he could see the troops of angels and fiery chariots of protection round about. (discuss this scripture passage with the children, noting how it seemed the whole world was against Elisha and his servant, but when the Lord opened the Servant's eyes he could see as Elisha saw, that there was more ready to fight for them than there were against them.)

That’s precisely what we need, God’s intervention, when we only see the carnal side of our situations. First, we must look into the word, it has all our answers. (Psalm 119:18—Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.)

It’s true that there are more for us than against us...look at the following scriptures...

Rev. 12:4 & 7-10—only 1/3 of the angels fell. Therefore there are 2/3 left to protect.

Heb. 12:1—we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. We have other saints, the saints of old, angels and God on our side.

Is. 59:19—So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.  When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

There was someone else who was spiritually blind who allowed his blindness to affect himself and those around him. He didn’t really have a negative situation in his life, he was the negative situation.

The apostle Paul persecuted the church because he couldn’t see truth and he thought everyone else was wrong. He was trying to defend God only to find out that he was fighting against him. However, one day on the road to Damascus he had a personal encounter with God. The scriptures’ recording of Paul being blinded and then the scales falling from his eyes symbolizes how we are blind until we come in contact with "the truth". The truth of who God is will cause us to be able to see more clearly. God made the proverbial scales fall of his eyes so that he could see through his spiritual eyes. This process is called revelation.

We need to look at every situation in our lives with clarity and we can do this by applying God’s word. If we are sick or maybe in my situation with my daughter being sick, I need to not be disappointed or upset about that situation, I have to look at it knowing that God said he is the healer and that he doesn’t lie. However, he cannot heal if I have doubt. Doubt is a blinder, faith is an eye opener. Sometimes we go through life with our spiritual blinders on. We see everything from a human, carnal perspective; however, we don’t have to do that. We can look at every situation from God’s perspective by looking to his word. we can believe that when the enemy comes in like a flood that the Lord will lift up a standard against him.