Yesterday I began a two-part series at Calvary Assembly of God sandwiched around Thanksgiving Day. The series is simply called Thanks and is based on the premise that thankfulness is the soil for healthy growth.
Have you ever grown a garden? If you have, you know that even though you plant the best seeds in the best soil, if you simply leave it unattended, weeds will find their way into your well-manicured garden. If you leave your garden unattended for long enough, the weeds will eventually take over.
It’s just as true for our minds. We can cultivate the best soil in our minds and plant only the finest seeds. But if we do nothing more, the weeds will take over and eventually choke out anything good that was growing there.
A spirit of continual thankfulness will keep the soil free from the choking weeds. But pulling out weeds by our thankfulness must be a continual process. So I gave our church the 365/730/1095 challenge.
Start a thanksgiving journal. If you just write down one unique thing every day for which you are thankful, you will have recorded 365 things in a year. More challenging: write down two things every day, or even—are you brave enough to attempt this?—three things every day. If you find two things each day, you will have 730 weed busters by the end of the year, or three items will give you 1095 weed busters.
Are you ready for the challenge?
I’m going to attempt to find three unique things each day for the next year. I hope this is encouraging to you, and I hope you will accept the 365/730/1095 challenge too.
“If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city” (
Craig T. Owens 