Scripture

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever” (1 Chron. 16:34).

Introduction

We’ve all done it—forgotten to say thank you. We’ve all reminded our children to do it. As sad as it is, the world we live in is one that keeps us constantly on the go, moving from one activity to the next, pulling us in five different directions. And sometimes we allow a careless attitude to creep into our relationship with God. We don’t take the time to stop and worship in His presence or spend time saying “thank you.” This program will focus on slowing down and saying thank you to God. It will remind us to worship God for the glory of who He is.

Decorations

Decorate as you would for a harvest party with fall foliage, pumpkins and gourds. Also have a small bag of goodies or treats for each woman.

Activities

Blessing Tree

Using brown construction paper cut out a tree trunk with branches. Cut out leaf shapes from colored construction paper and give each woman a leaf. Invite them to write on the leaf things they are thankful for or people who have blessed them. Attach the leaves to the tree branches. Make sure pens or markers are available.

Blessings Jar Craft

Provide each participant with a small glass vase or mason jar, ribbons and labels to decorate the jar. Write the word “Blessings” on the jar. Encourage the women to write something they are thankful for on a slip of paper each day and place in it the jar. On Thanksgiving Day they can read through what they have written and see how blessed they are.

Thank You Notes

Encourage the women to write out a prayer of thanks to God for His faithful love. Play “Worthy is the Lamb” as they write out their prayer. This song can be found on YouTube.

Just One More Little Treat

Halloween has recently passed. I hope that you all enjoyed it. My kids and I really had a great time dressing up and having fun in our community. Does anyone else love taking kids trick or treating or giving out candy at Halloween? If you do, you know how excited kids get at the prospect of receiving candy. In most instances, the kids will run to the front door, ring the bell, and then jostle for position—pushing their friends out of the way so they can get the candy first. Then when the door opens, the kids excitedly yell “trick or treat!” And then as soon as they get the candy they’ll turn around and start over to the next house for more candy… that is until the parent or adult with them stops them and says, “What do you say? You forgot to say thank you!”

Sometimes we go through life, treating our Heavenly Father a lot like a house on Halloween. We run up to Him and start yelling for Him to come out. We ring the bell, make a lot of noise, we push other things and people out of the way as we wait for Him to answer. And then when He opens the door we cry out for Him to give us some treats—to fix whatever is bothering us. We wait with our bags open, fully expecting Him to just pour out the treats and answer prayers like candy on Halloween. We move on, go about life without God until another problem or concern comes into our lives and we beg for one more little treat to make us happy.

There are two really big problems with this: First, when we act this way, we treat God like a genie in a bottle instead of as our loving heavenly Father. It’s like running up to Him in the middle of crisis or when we have a strong desire for something, but otherwise we spend our time running through the streets with our friends. Much of the time we ignore the Father’s desires because we are so fixated on the treats in our Halloween baskets. We change Him into a wish granter, rather than a Father who desires a deep relationship with us—a loving God who wants to be a part of our lives.

Do we stop to praise God for who He is? Do we remember His faithfulness, His kindness, His great love for us? When King David united Israel, he didn’t forget God’s role in all of it. In fact, one of the first things he did was to bring the Ark of the Covenant—the place where God’s glory dwelt—to the new capital. In doing this, he wrote a song of praise declaring the power and goodness of God. “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!” he writes. “His faithful love endures forever” (1 Chron. 16:34).

We shouldn’t worship God because of His gifts. We should worship God because of who He is. When we make worship our priority, the way King David did, our hearts start to beat to the rhythm of God’s heart and we find our lives in alignment with His character. We realize that He is good and His faithful love endures forever! This realization then changes us from the inside out and permeates our lives. Don’t forget to say thank you. Don’t forget to worship God for who He is.