Faith: What’s for dinner?

As Thursday is Thanksgiving, we may be thinking of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and the trimmings.

Or you may have your own tradition, or a meal out or even an everyday meal.

We will be celebrating the day after Thanksgiving with Pastor Gary’s homemade noodles, and the nephews will be over to help roll out the pasta and crack the eggs.

But another question is: What are you feasting on in your mind this Thanksgiving?

Maybe you have had a tough year, with losses and difficulties; or maybe it’s been a year of high points and victories.

I recently heard that if you put your mindset on being thankful, you are always in a good mood! It isn’t always easy to be thankful when we go through difficult times. There are always two sides to a coin, but it isn’t always easy to look at both sides when we are going through a valley.

This may be one of those years when you are going through a valley. It certainly has been for me.

What do we do when we are going through a valley, a hard time, a trial? We need to look for support and find strength. These are a few verses that have encouraged me.

Philippians 4:8 is a verse I learned in our girl’s club as a child: “Dear brothers and sisters, one final thing; keep your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

We have choices what to think on. Some things in life come at us and are out of our control. Other things are intentionally heaped on us by others.

Either way, we can choose to think on the pure, lovely, admirable things that are worthy of praise. As I see the freshly falling snow, it is lovely; or I can complain about the shoveling, slipping, wet and cold.

Think on the lovely things!

Psalm 62:8 says: “O my people, trust in Him at all times. Pour out your heart to Him, for God is our refuge.”

Sometimes we don’t know where to look. Things look and seem hopeless. That is the time we can pour out our heart to God. He has big shoulders and will hear and listen to our cry.

We can also look for other tools to find help to help us trust Him more. We can trust God, and as we trust Him more and look to Him more, we get stronger.

So here are a few tools to help us “feed” our hearts and spirits well this Thanksgiving, and all year round.

• 1. The YouVersion Bible App: It has a daily story that is encouraging. It also has plans you can read for encouragement in many areas such as love, healing, anxiety, hope, fear, peace, stress and more!
• 2. Worship music. Search YouTube for "Defender" by Steffany Gretzinger. This song deeply has spoken to me in hard times when I have needed strength.
• 3. A local church family. Find a church family that will point you to true faith in Jesus, fill your soul and be with you in hard and good times. As we move into the difficulty of winter, the hope of Christmas and Joy of celebrating Jesus together is refreshing.

After a big meal, we may feel stuffed, satisfied or ready for a nap or football.

After spiritual food, we can feel peace, contentment, and are ready to face the good and hard days ahead with a strength and joy that comes from above.

Submitted.

Carrie Espeseth is with Crosslake Christian Assembly of God Church in Crosslake.