Hi, I'm Shelby Abbott, and this is Psalms for Christmas Time, a podcast mini-series from Family Life with pastor and author Dane Ortland. Dane has written a book, In the Lord I Take Refuge, 150 Daily Devotions Through the Psalms. And all this month, with a gift of any amount, not only will your donation be matched, we'll send you a copy of the book to dive deeper into the Psalms and stir your affections for Jesus Christ.
To learn more about how to give, visit familylifetoday.com. Psalm 138, I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods I sing your praise. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness.
I am here joined once again by pastor and author Dane Ortland, who is the author of the book, In the Lord I Take Refuge, 150 Daily Devotions Through the Psalms. So this episode we're talking about thankfulness from Psalm 138. Now, thankfulness in this season of Christmas is something that we feel like we should be feeling, but often is difficult in light of being caught up in everything that's going on during Christmas. So how can we think through the element of thankfulness in this season that's so hurried and busy because of Christmas?
So true what you're saying, brother. We come into the Christmas season and the TV commercials and the billboards and our churches and our friends are all saying, hey, let's give thanks. A lot of times that's not where we're at in our lives, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, relationally. And we might say, how in the world am I supposed to be giving thanks to God when I do not feel like I have enough in my life to be thankful for? What the Psalms are really doing is training us to give thanks because of who God is and what He proved in Christ at Christmas rather than in my circumstances.
We tend to fixate on what is actually happening circumstantially in my life, which makes us very easily tend to focus on the bad, the things that are not working the way that we wish they were, and downplay the good. But the Psalms come along and they say, hey, there is reason for us to thank our way through life because of what God has done in Christ and in the gospel, which came to fruition and reality in a very earthly way at Christmas. The Psalms are training us to invert that tendency to focus on the bad and downplay the good. So Psalm 138, as he said, Shelby, I give thanks to you. The Psalm opens, O Lord, with my whole heart before the gods. I sing your praise. Amazing, he says, I give thanks with my whole heart. This is not a footnote to what my heart is doing. It's not an asterisk.
This is the center. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Not I give thanks for how you are causing my life to work out financially or circumstantially or any other way, but for your unfailing love. For you have exalted above all things, the Psalm goes on, your name and your word.
On the day I called, you answered me and so on. And the Psalm goes on to loop back time and again to this repeated resounding refrain of thanking God. And what we're celebrating here today in this holiday season, of course, is we have the supreme reason to be thankful in God sending his own son to be a baby born in a manger, grow, live the life we can never live, die the death we deserve to die, rise triumphantly.
It all began at Christmas. And so we can take fresh hope and refuge in Christ and thank our way forward in defiance of what our life circumstantially might be like right now. It's so easy circumstantially to look around and then look at all the areas where things aren't the way that we want them to be. And I heard a pastor say one time in the times when you think your life is going the worst, that's when it's time to look around and count your blessings. Oh, I love that.
That's so true. And I think what we want to say is when life is not working the way that we wish it would, when I've just gotten laid off, when I've just broken up with a girlfriend, when my job application got rejected or whatever, when the family relationships are really dysfunctional and painful, one of the things that God is inviting us into in that moment is to more deeply than ever thank God for what is stable, namely as Psalm 138 says, his steadfast love and his faithfulness. We know that God is using every little thing in our lives, hard or not hard, big or small, to walk us into depth with him to become the truly radiant and solid men and women that he has destined us to be. So when life is hard, let's thank God all the more, not for that hard circumstance, but thank him through that hard circumstance for his unfailing love in the hard circumstance. That's beautifully put, and one of the things I think that is important for us to do is not only remind ourselves of the big things we're thankful for, but the little things as well, and this is stuff I do with my kids. What are you thankful for from this past week?
The weather, swimming in a pool. I got to use this crayon instead of this one, and when you see that through the eyes of a child too, you're able to go, oh, there are many things for me to be thankful for. It's not just the big things all the time that I'm looking for these grand things to point to, but then reminding ourselves of the gospel. There's always room to be thankful for the gospel. Thanks for helping us see that and pointing us in the right direction today. Hey, that was a great conversation with Dane.
I really enjoyed that. If you want to go deeper, Dane has written a book called In the Lord I Take Refuge, 150 Daily Devotions Through the Psalms. All this month, during the month of December, with a donation of any amount that you give to Family Life, we will send you a copy of this book that Dane has written. To learn more about how to give, visit familylifetoday.com. This podcast has been a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-07-09 20:38:06 / 2023-07-09 20:41:07 / 3
