The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Conversation and stories about real athletes and the journey thru sport, faith and life.
Connecting athletes, sports families and the church. Build bridges and telling real stories to help repair, build and grow people.
Hosts Dan Dromarsky and Dave Dawson
The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Thanksgiving
As we cruise down memory lane, the conversation naturally flows into the heartwarming traditions of Thanksgiving, highlighting how we embrace the holiday but are we thankful?
Gather ‘round as we laugh and reflect on these shared experiences in Episode 17 of the Gospel and the Game podcast.
Thanksgiving is more than just a meal; it's a celebration rich with diverse traditions and a reminder of gratitude's place in our lives. From week-long festivities to cozy afternoons with family, food, and football, we explore the varying customs across America. Ever wondered if our culture truly appreciates enough? Join us as we share stories that question and celebrate gratitude, including a unique tradition of praying for our meals — both before and after. This episode invites you to appreciate the toil that brings food to our tables and consider the profound ritual of thankfulness embedded in our daily routines.
Turning our focus to the world of sports, we dive into how gratitude shapes success and resilience. Through personal stories and examples, discover how an attitude of thankfulness can transform setbacks, like injuries, into opportunities for growth. One young hockey player's journey illustrates the profound impact gratitude can have on mindset and perseverance. Finally, we reflect on the power of gratitude in faith, sharing a personal story of unexpected provision during financial hardships, and encouraging listeners to embrace a spirit of thankfulness. As we prepare for Thanksgiving, we ponder the transformative journey of faith and gratitude, urging everyone to recognize the blessings around them and foster a closer connection with the divine.
here's the question of the day, dave, did you, or still do you, collect hockey cards?
Speaker 2:still do I uh, is it 1992 still?
Speaker 1:or you know, was a yeah, that like window of like in 90 to 92 was huge.
Speaker 2:The card craze was insane back then. I remember a gentleman that I worked with, um that Shaw, who um died of cancer a couple of years ago and he had well known in the Edmonton media for a lot of the things that he did. But he had collected all of these cards over the years and he had just hawked them off during that craze and he said he made tens of thousands. He had six or seven gretzky rookies and non-stop would just blow through them. So do I still collect them? No, but I still have all my cards from then really, and if they became popular again?
Speaker 1:here's the thing cards are popular.
Speaker 2:Oh they are. They're crazy again well, are they? As not not as crazy as the 90s, but yeah, so if they became that crazy again there's too many people that have their collection still okay, so here's the thing.
Speaker 2:I went to a card store a year ago and I, just because I was curious, I was tied in for finances in a little portion of that and I so I was like, oh, I don't know how much I can get for some of these old cards or whatever, right, because I mean they're so mass produced you're a sturgay federoff rookie yeah the yarmir yogger one.
Speaker 2:And so, anyway, I went into the store and they had essentially said those are so mass produced, it'll be two generations until those are worth anything again like not one generation. Two generations until those are worth anything again Like not one generation. Two generations until those are worth anything again. Wow, because there's so many of them out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was Okay, 1983, 84. I'm a young buck. I have two older siblings. My older siblings were really into collecting hockey cards, and when a player got traded. They would take a black marker out and cross off the old team and write on the new team. So Cam Neely's rookie card is with the Hartford Whalers. They would cross it out in black ink and write Bruins on it. Cam Neely turned out to be a pretty he was okay.
Speaker 2:And a good actor as well, and he had. And yes, I've seen that movie.
Speaker 1:You've seen that movie I have. What a pretty. He was okay, yeah, and a good actor as well, and he had uh and yes, I've seen that movie. You've seen that movie. What a great start to the show. But he, um was a great power forward and his card ended up being worth a decent amount of coin, but we had a whole bunch of them that had Bruins written across it, thankfully, thankfully from that batch.
Speaker 2:I did get a stevie eiserman rookie card out of that one, but or bill clinton steve is here, man never mind after the red wings won the cup years ago and bill clinton was present oh, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the red wings of the captain steve is here. Man like the biggest name in us hockey, that's right whoops, but yeah, it was funny because I was, um, I got handed down to me a bunch of these hockey cards and I at the time I wasn't very thankful for the ones I received, especially the ones that had black ink written across them for traded players, right but you know, I I did research years ago on how to repair some of those like.
Speaker 2:There's a way that you can remove the sharpie yeah, like there's a heat sensitivity, like if you google it there's they're actually because there used to be. You know, you get the packs of hockey cards with the gum in it so some of the gum had melted. It would stick to it or whatever. So like there's. There's a lot of science out there how to remove ink without damaging the car I don't think you can remove permanent ink.
Speaker 1:Otherwise I can you know what, if there is? Then, I'm going to sue Sharpie for their permanent ink label on their marker.
Speaker 2:I don't know. That's something I would be thankful to watch as that process is going on. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what. That's true, though. You know what they're right. Sometimes you can unwind it when things are, but you know you still have them. You know what I'll show you afterwards. I got a good stack of them. I have some of the older ones.
Speaker 2:I have the older ones.
Speaker 1:I got a lot of collections.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:One of them happens to be hockey cards, but not recent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the other swim trunks and binoculars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not binoculars.
Speaker 2:Speaking of throwbacks, episode 17, we're talking about Thanksgiving. But Episode 17, we're talking about Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:But it's late November, american Thanksgiving, as we Canadians refer to it as Thursday. No, you still do Thanksgiving. Well, in fact, I host a Thanksgiving dinner on American Thanksgiving. It started off as a tradition where my oldest son is in the States going to school as a Canadian, and someone was kind enough to have him over for a Canadian Thanksgiving in the States, so I said you know what I'm going to start? A tradition. Know a bunch of US hockey guys that are in town playing hockey. I'm going to host a Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 2:Okay, then I'm going to come over and we'll celebrate President's Day in January as well.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Yeah, for sure We'll pick all the different. Let's just dual calendars, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love it. Um, we have a bit of a hiatus, but we're grateful to be back. Episode 17 on Thanksgiving. This is the gospel and the game podcast. I'm Dave, that's Dan. Well done, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've been practicing that as well.
Speaker 2:I was very tempted on I got to quickly make up a lanyard for Dave. Just walk around, Hi, Dave.
Speaker 1:Oh, actually you know what Great opportunity for a story. I was a teenager and we had gone to some sort of course. My aunts signed us up for me and my cousins and we go into Taco Bell afterwards for lunch. Me and the cousins and a whole bunch of like teenaged kids are like hey Reed, how's it going?
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh man you're popular.
Speaker 1:He's like I don't know those guys. They're like all right, no, no, reed, everything's going good. He's like yeah, I'm doing good. He's like all right, awesome, good to see you again, reed. And they walk out. Reed, possibly you're still wearing your name tag from where we were just at. He had been wearing it all afternoon, all afternoon wearing a shirt with a tag.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm like we were just at the mall, we were just at like I was listing off all the places where we had been to and I'm like you were probably everyone's probably thinking that you may have been struggling a little bit.
Speaker 2:mentally. I have some limitations, that's right. Just wanted to make sure you felt accepted.
Speaker 1:That's right. Thank you for good memories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're ever having a bad day that's a good way to encourage some thankfulness into your life is wearing a name tag. But Thanksgiving right, it's Thanksgiving week in USA. But I think also, you know, we've had some incredible topics throughout so far in this podcast and I think, as you and I were talking about a topic for today approaching life, as there's so much heaviness in life we can focus on in sport, there's so much heaviness in sport we can focus on. There's ways that we can attack that with different principles through scripture, as we talked about as well, and one way to approach life through scripture is thanksgiving, and I think that's a really underrated, tremendous weapon in our arsenal yeah, and you know, I'm deciding on what verse to take out of scripture today for a verse about things.
Speaker 1:There's so many of them and one of them that was like the verse that most people would choose in all things give thanks and it's like wow, like yeah, it's Thanksgiving is universal, isn't it being thankful?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was going to read today's scripture.
Speaker 1:You do it, let's do it.
Speaker 2:I left it right there for me. So first Thessalonians, chapter five, verses 16 to 18, says this Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you, in Christ Jesus, the word of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen to that. I was just going to talk a little bit about some. You know we get into differences with Thanksgiving and we can sit here and talk about all the different themes and different things people do. And you said Thanksgiving week, some people it's a week-long celebration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in America, just like Independence Day, they take a week off for it.
Speaker 1:That's right. Some people it's just like it's an afternoon, it's a good reason to get together and have turkey, and so it can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. Uh, I know some people even had traditions outside of the meal, right? How many households sit and watch five hours or 10 hours worth?
Speaker 2:of football I mean, is that every sunday, theoretically every sunday, can be thanksgiving sunday? That's right, but yes, that's part of it. For sure, there's traditions and part of culture whenever you grew up with yeah, and, and sometimes even traditions with food.
Speaker 1:Right, and traditions with food is not not everyone's a turkey. Are you a ham?
Speaker 2:what you missed is we both stuck our hands out at the same time like horizontal, vertical. I won. Um, I was going a different direction. I'm a turkey guy, I don't mind. I'm a turkey guy, I don't mind him, I'm a turkey, you Both Easy.
Speaker 1:I could have both at a Thanksgiving meal Easy. What direction are you going with this?
Speaker 2:I already forgot what I was going to say.
Speaker 1:That direction. Well, you know what, hey, when you talk about Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:It was a fleeting thought that popped into my head. That's where my arm stuck out. It's like get rid of this now and it's gone. That's right. And they come back at a different point.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I was thinking a little bit when pondering this subject about. You know, there's a lot of things that we're not necessarily openly grateful for. When you talk about sports and you talk about Thanksgiving, you think of the events that are happening. There's some great, whether it's college basketball happening, college football. There's a lot of different big events around the week of Thanksgiving and I think a lot of people think of it as a time to get together and have fellowship, be thankful together. But independently, are we like an overly thankful culture? Under thankful culture, you always the cliche answer is like if I gave you a microphone right now, who do you say thanks to? I remember what I was going to say and it actually worked out perfectly.
Speaker 2:Do you pray for your food? I do okay. Are you thankful for your food?
Speaker 2:absolutely and that's one thing that, when it comes to thankful culture, we'll start something easy like that with food. I think it, when we look at the principles of how we attack each of our lives right, it'll come down to the basics first. So we're talking about Thanksgiving. Something as simple and small as praying and being thankful for your food might give a reflection to what the grander thankfulness of your life. It's a good starting point, right? So maybe you're having a hard time being grateful for what's happening around you. For me, praying for my food is kind of a neat reset, right. So get up in the morning, whatever. Yeah, you do your thing, whatever. Okay, I'm going to pray for my food. Is it the posture of praying bad things out of my food? For some people, maybe it is, maybe it's not.
Speaker 1:Did we touch on this or we have?
Speaker 2:a subject of this, outside of this? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think we might have talked about this outside of this podcast about praying for food, because I mentioned someone that I know that prays for their food before and after their meal.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so we didn't have this conversation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the thought process was that they usually say well, you give thanks for your food, you're thanking God, you haven't even had it yet, sure, okay, well, why are you doing that? What's the thing that you're doing? Are you hoping that you don't get sick from it? I have another friend that we used to do that and be like where am I at right now? Okay, well, I'm at an obviously different, cultured place that probably doesn't believe in the God that I believe in, and he literally prayed aloud God, please don't allow, please, let me live through this meal. The people obviously don't believe what I believe in and believe in you, sure, so I just pray that I wouldn't die from this, and not to make fun of the preparation or anything else that went along with it Sure.
Speaker 1:But it was just a preparation for having the meals. But anyway, back to the guy that used to pray for before and after. It still does. And so he said the idea of is goes along with the fall Right and the fall.
Speaker 2:I was trying to signal you to mute my mic there.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not going to mute your mic, I just coughed live in the podcast. You're allowed to cough.
Speaker 2:I had a tickle coming through there.
Speaker 1:You're allowed to cough.
Speaker 2:Speaking of the fall yeah.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, he said, because of the fall, you toil from the ground. You labor for the ground in order to have your food, sure, and so because you're the process of toil and everything like that, you're thankful that the Lord allowed you the opportunity for provision in order to provide for family, those people around, and required the sweat of your brow in order to do it. And so you would bless the food that you're having and out of thanks that you have it.
Speaker 1:And then afterwards you're thankful that you've received it and that you've had it and you've enjoyed it, and now that your stomach is full and you now have enough nutrients and sustenance to go out and go do it again and I was like well, okay, that's kind of a really interesting perspective of it. But it just kind of made me really think, boy, like, maybe this guy's a little more thankful, has a little more understanding of the process in which happened, in order for him to have that.
Speaker 2:I love the way you describe that because it makes me think of so. Like you know, you're having family dinner and maybe you're gathering with friends. You know, for me, from my perspective, I would, I would wrap it all together of going well. I'm thankful for the interactions that I have with these people, I'm thankful for the group, thankful for the experience and the food that I feel full I'm, I'm nourished on all levels, yeah, right. So after the meal, after the great conversation over the dinner table, that would be a great time for me to say, hey, you know what, guys, let's just pray and just be thankful for that.
Speaker 2:And you're right, that's a unique perspective to take on Thanksgiving. Because, back to the question that you asked at the beginning are we a thankful people? That's a shift, that's a mindset shift for me. Like where else can I be thankful in my life driving through snowstorm, getting back? Thank you, lord, that my car worked and that I got home safely and everyone around me got home safely, that I was traveling with right, that's a big thing as well. Do we do that enough in a society? I don't know. Know Well, you know what.
Speaker 1:I started, incorporating prayer. I've always prayed on my way to work and just praying and just asking for provision for the day and for the different tasks I have to do, and often pray for the people that I'll be surrounded with and just for patience from them with me because I might not be moving or processing or doing things in the speed in which they would want for me. And then afterwards I started praying not too long ago on the way home and just actually continuing the conversation from where I left off on the way to work, of just like, thanks for the provision of work today, even though I didn't make a cent doing it today, or if I'd had a great day or whatever it was, and it was just like no, like you provided me a place to go in order to have an opportunity, in order to do it. Thanks for the people that were around me and my this interaction and that interaction. And you're right, it's a, it's a shift in mindset, because I think it's go back to the other part of the question.
Speaker 1:I asked you, like an athlete or someone that gets an award, the first thing I want, I thank God, and then they start listing off the people. They kind of it's because they understand the process. People say, well, it's cliche. Everyone says I thank God. Well, I think no. They kind of understand what it took and who it took in order for them to get to that moment where they could say thanks.
Speaker 2:Leads to a great another great conversation. So I have moment where they could say thanks leads to a great another great conversation so but out of some friends over for great cup, right, both guys.
Speaker 1:First what?
Speaker 2:is the great. Yeah, you could probably ask the winnipeg blue bombers the same thing, but being from winnipeg, I can make that joke.
Speaker 1:Um we do have listeners outside of canada.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true it's the canadian football league championship. Okay, that's why I would. What? What is baseball right for people in canada who don't know as well?
Speaker 2:but by canadian football we don't mean soccer, we mean like, like so, yeah, the canadian football league championship, which is the great cop we had a couple weeks back there. So I had a couple of friends over for it, both you know. One, I would say, is, you know, subscribed to and lives an authentic christ following life, and the other one, I think, believes and has had background. But there's still some questions there. So the one friend, um, we were watching a clip of one of the players who interviewed after and said I'm just grateful the Lord has given me the strength to do this and and so that this other guy pipes up before the player even finishes the interview and says God has no hand in winning or losing. What's he talking about? Even finishes the interview and says God has no hand in winning or losing. What's he talking about? And my, my buddy beside me, we didn't respond to him, we kind of just went. I don't think he was talking about like the win or the or the loss.
Speaker 1:The fact that he could participate.
Speaker 2:I think and then, but then the drive of success that he was able to to do his role to a high level, and then he's, and then he won. So that was just his response. If you have a mic in my face, okay, well, that's my response when I would imagine, if he lost it might be a similar interview, but he might say I'm still grateful the Lord has given me the opportunity to play this game. So it makes me wonder like is success dependent on thankfulness?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, to answer the question first, before my comment, success is not dependent on gratitude. I think gratitude is part of the process, no matter what. Go back to the verse that we talked about Pray, continually, giving thanks in all circumstances. That includes winning and losing, and an attitude of gratitude. That's there. I think it's important. In an athlete's mindset, you've got to participate. You talk about Paralympics before. How many people would have loved to be able to sprint with their own two legs? Sure, and so even that side of it not even physically compete, but can to compete at that level, the odds like decrease so fast to be able to participate at high levels, and I think often, yeah, it's taken for granted by some people, but the reality is is that it becomes rare and rare and rare, rare, rare to the point where there's a limit on how many people can.
Speaker 1:Only certain people are in the finals. In sprinting for the gold medal, you don't have a thousand people lined up like you would in a marathon. You got what? Six?
Speaker 2:and I love what your friend said. Going back to the comment about before and after dinner, right, because I think that's a good mindset when you draw out this Does thankfulness and success, or do they go hand in hand? Well, sure, when things are going well, it's very easy to be thankful.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:But I think to go deeper. A thankful spirit like that is your foundation and everything springboards off of that, in order to live a thankful life Right. You can be thankful and joyful, specifically thankful, even when things aren't going well, if you can take perspective. Like you know, we've been talking in the generic terms, but life principles let's bring sport into it, right. We'll use hockey as an example, because you and I are both very closely tied to hockey. That's our simpatico sport connection. So you know you're in a situation where maybe you had a pretty bad injury. You're gonna be out four to six weeks. Your team is having a lot of success on the sideline. You know you're watching rather than your team struggling. Your team is having more success without you. So instead of going, oh man, it sucks that they're losing, I can't wait to get back in and contribute, while the opposite Now they're better. Now that you're gone, how can you be thankful on the sidelines?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what? And that's such a good application, such a good thought on so many levels. In sport it's not just the pros. When you're a pro and you get hurt, it's like your livelihood's on the line. And when you're a young person, it's important to realize that it's like okay, listen, there's a point now where you can still play a role in this. I coach hockey. It's elite level stream hockey.
Speaker 1:It's young men. In the exhibition season we had one of our best forwards get injured to the point where he couldn't play and so he sat out for over a month and a bit and finally he's waiting for surgery and he made the decision with his parents to just play. You know what I'm playing? I'm waiting for a surgery, leg injury, there's nothing I can do about it. Surgeon said at your own risk, you can play, do it. Plays a couple games, finds success. The young man scoring a goal in front of the net net gets banged into and is done now, and I remember having a conversation with him and just trying to invest into this young man's life, helping them to see that there is like hope, just even athletic wise, like just the defeat that's upon him and I said, the important thing is is to just get better physically.
Speaker 1:So that way, your future self thanks you, and so your future self can look back and say you know what, thanks for taking the time to get better, to get stronger, to go through that process of difficulty and to really focus on what you need to, to turn where you needed to do, get mentally strong, even though you couldn't be physical with your leg. All the things that you did. I can look back and I can thank my younger self, and so we have this saying now in our team. It's like make your future self thank you, and I think part of it is just realizing that as Christians, we can even take that even deeper, where we can say it's not necessarily thanking my future self, but I can now look back on a longstanding relationship with God and I can look back and I say, okay, lord, I have this difficulty and I went through this and that was the process. But you know what? I saw your fingerprints all over it. You put this person in my life. You allowed me to experience this.
Speaker 1:I remember that moment when I was on my knees and I just I was broken. I remember when I had to overcome this side of it. It made me into who I am now and, instead of thanking your previous self, you can continue to thank God, and part of that other part of the verse is giving thanks to God in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. That's the hard part of the verse. Understanding that, maybe, even during difficult times hard part of the verse Understanding that, maybe, even during difficult times, that this is God's will. God, you're putting me through this refining process in order for me to become who I need to be in you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the verse that talks about. You know what the enemy chose for evil, the Lord will turn around and use for good, right, right. So the enemy isn't always the author of all kinds of evil things and injury. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. I don't really want to debate that theologically. It's not the no, not not the point yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:But where I want to go is that how do we get to that point of thankfulness when difficulty arises? And I want to refer to scripture, and I think that is where having that attitude of gratitude as the 2024 Instagram will say, the attitude of gratitude starts in a spot. Realizing that you know, digging deep into your soul, into your, you know great principles of becoming a better person, can only get you so far. Having great relationships can only get you so far. Having great music, having great talent, having great family, maybe sometimes medication, sometimes therapy, can only get you so far.
Speaker 2:Having that foundation of scripture is where that thankfulness is going to eventually come from. Because what does scripture do? It's a reflection, first of all the inside of you, because it's a Holy Spirit showing you what the inside of you looks like. And then you're transforming the inside of you, replacing your life with god's life, and it's going to reflect outward. So god cannot be um, he's not a liar, he's not full of like. God is love. So the further we dig into scripture, the thankfulness will come out, radiating out from through god's love.
Speaker 1:For sure, and you know he made me think here in a little bit, thinking about all the different like times I've seen someone on like when they've been victorious in something.
Speaker 1:There's nothing quite like seeing a man or someone in defeat still saying God is good, and I think that's a powerful, powerful relationship that speaks of that.
Speaker 1:I was just sitting here as you were talking about that great point, a point in my life when I was a young man and we had just gotten married and my oldest son was just an infant, and I remember waiting a couple days for a paycheck and waiting for money, and I remember going to the grocery store because and making the list and having the list and the list was diapers, bread, milk and eggs. And I remember going to the store with these five items and pulling the money out of my pocket and taking these five items and putting them in a basket and adding everything up and saying, okay, well, diapers, milk, eggs, bread Boy, I got enough money for eggs, yes, and bread, I don't even have enough money for milk and I don't have enough money for diapers, but I think we might be okay. But I don't know, lord, like this might be, take one of dad's old T-shirts and fold it up.
Speaker 2:rightly, dad's a Leafs fan.
Speaker 1:For a couple hours. And I remember doing that and just saying, okay, God, like you know what, Thanks for allowing me to have bread and and eggs, and I'll just go pay for them now and somehow explain it to my wife that we didn't have enough for everything else. And remember hopping in my car and I just felt like dirt, absolute dirt, like ashamed, that I can't even like I can't even like I can't even supply for my family. And I drive home and I pull up and there's my mom on the front step holding my son and my wife is holding a jug of milk and a package of diapers. Wow, and this is back in the day where there was no texting back at the grocery store or nothing and I just like sat there and I'm just like wow, God you're good.
Speaker 1:You already knew that you are really good and, like it just made me think it's like you know what? Hey, it's a. I was thankful for the provision in that moment, but I was also thankful for the fact that, like Lord, you allowed me to like see this and see this perspective, cause I know that there will be a day where I won't be counting change.
Speaker 2:And even if I am.
Speaker 1:I'm still gonna be thankful that I have changed and I have breath in my lungs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, you shared that story with me before somewhere along the line, but that's, that's a powerful story, and I think there's something different between and I want to make this clear rejoicing, being joyful and being thankful.
Speaker 1:I think those are all different things. Yeah, totally they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, maybe, maybe if you're listening today you're you're having a hard time understanding. Okay, how can I be thankful when it doesn't seem like there's a lot of things lining up well in my life? And I can understand tricking myself into being happy and joyful and rejoicing, that's maybe something easier. But being thankful when nothing's really lining up, I think one thing that I've tried to repurpose my life, even my prayer life, if you look at the Lord's prayer and the way that you know it breaks down, you know from the very, very first lines of the Lord's prayer is that you're just in awe. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be, but be thy name Right so you're, before anything else, before your grocery list comes out or before your list of needs and wants and helps.
Speaker 2:Like God, you are so holy, you know, and and I think one one of the things that has helped me over the years and more recently as well just to reframe my mindset when approaching prayer and reproaching my day, starting it out just praising the Lord and thanking him for his goodness Cause, even if there are things in my life that I want that or I need that I I'm not seeing understanding that god is a holy god, and just just to worship him, it's reframes my mind into a spot of just going.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm so grateful for, what I have around me and it's it's really changed things. And I think, if there's anyone out there today listening who are maybe don't really understand, maybe your prayer life is, you know, finding some blockages or maybe you're, you know you're not seeing the type of relationship with the Lord that you might've had before or maybe over the years, you know you've struggled a little bit here or there. You know. I want to encourage you, I think that if you, you know you can read the Lord's prayer. That's one thing specifically, and you can break, break it down if you'd like to, but you know where where I really want to just encourage you to start it off with just pure Thanksgiving. If you're having blockages, instead of actually praying and going through the motions, just pray thankfulness. Do that over and over again.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And here's the thing that will blow your mind the book of Romans tells us that none seek after God. That means no one. So the evidence that a person is thankful and acknowledges God for it is that God has sought their heart. And if you really think about it, you think about it well. That person is giving thanks to God. No, no, no. That person is giving thanks to God because God has triggered that in them, because he has provided for them and has shown his care to them first, before they ever said thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's a heart transformation from the inside oh, for sure right, it isn't an instant I'm just thankful for everything because life is good. No, it's a getting into scripture, allowing the holy spirit to change you, and then you're radiating from the inside what's out and what a good challenge, what a good challenge that you just gave.
Speaker 1:like it's how do I do? It's like me sitting with you and often when I think we put God is in the sky and I can't have, I can't, no, no, no. It's like uh, it's like someone sitting right next to you. No, no, Dave, thanks for being part of this.
Speaker 2:You know, we're going to do something a little bit different to finish this out tonight. I, I, I just, I feel like, yeah, there's someone listening that is maybe in a spot that they just don't know how to be thankful or to pray for thankfulness, whether it's there's been things and that have happened in their life, or maybe they lost trust in the Lord or over the years due to things. But, um, yeah, I, just, I just want to pray a Thanksgiving prayer over over who, whoever you are right now, or maybe if there's anyone else, and, yeah, we'll just close it out after that. So, yeah, father, I just want to thank you, god, just that you are a holy God, lord, that you are a loving, powerful God, lord, that you created us in your image, in your likeness. Lord, thank you for your Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. Lord, as we accept you into our lives, you transform us from the inside out.
Speaker 2:Lord, when we confess and repent, meaning that we turn away from the horrible things and the thoughts and the actions that we have known as sin. Lord, you restore and renew us. So we thank you that you paid the penalty for us. Jesus, I thank you that you died on the cross for our sins and rose again. Many have died, but only one has ever rose from the grave and paid the punishment for all of our sins. So, lord, without raising from the dead, that's a death that doesn't get recognized in history. So we just thank you for who you are. We thank you just for the restoration and the joy that you give us. So, father, just today, just a blessing upon whoever needs a boost of thanksgiving in their life. Father, in this time of American Thanksgiving, Lord, we just pray a blessing upon the heart that needs restoring. Lord, you inject life back into it again and only you can do, lord, because you're the waymaker. So we thank you for your provision, we thank you for your grace, we thank you for your mercy. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. In closing, we encourage you to build a life that's pleasing to God and just take a time and take a moment in your own heart, in your own time today, to say thanks to God. I'm Dan, you're Dave, we appreciate you listening, do follow and, more importantly, say thanks today.
