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00:00:01
Thanksgiving Traditions That Anchor Your Faith
27 Plays2 days ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez sat down with Pastor Ridley Barron and Kyle Hess to discuss the Thanksgiving holiday, its origins, and its relevance to the Christian faith. The conversation explored how gratitude is a cornerstone of spiritual life, how traditions can anchor faith in families, and the importance of establishing meaningful rhythms that point us back to God. From historical trivia about Thanksgiving’s roots to practical ways to incorporate gratitude into daily life, this episode is both reflective and inspiring for listeners preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Timestamps:
00:01 – Introduction and setting the stage for Thanksgiving.
00:59 – Why Thanksgiving resonates deeply with Christians.
03:19 – Making holidays Christ-centered opportunities for faith conversations.
07:22 – The role of traditions in cultivating gratitude and faith.
11:11 – Unique family traditions and their spiritual significance.
16:13 – When traditions become empty rituals: staying intentional.
23:15 – Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and Thanksgiving’s history.
24:49 – The connection between gratitude, humility, and God’s faithfulness.
25:40 – Closing reflections on cultivating a heart of thankfulness.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm here with Ridley and Kyle today since John is on his way to celebrate his Thanksgiving with family, I assume, in Oklahoma.
00:00:11
Ridley
Yeah, yeah, the Oklahoma crew.
00:00:11
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. But we are still here. We are, of course, celebrating Thanksgiving coming up this week. If you're listening to this, it might just, might be Thanksgiving, might be past Thanksgiving, but it is it is this week here and in our town.
00:00:28
Dan Sanchez
i Thought we'd have a conversation about this holiday because it's an interesting holiday. It's not it's not a biblical holiday But Christians, I feel like as a Christian we so we still take a lot of pride and joy in this American holiday um And I think that's that's a good thing. How do you what do you think about when it comes to Thanksgiving Ridley since it's not like a It's not even something that's like come off the Christian calendar or the Catholic calendar like Christmas and Easter has, but I feel like Christians have really embraced this one. How do how do you respond to this one?
00:00:58
Ridley
I think there's a natural tendency for Christians to to be drawn towards this but just because the Bible speaks so much about having a heart of thankfulness and a heart of gratitude. And obviously we have much, much, much to be thankful for.
00:01:10
Ridley
There's not as many, at least not that I'm aware of, not as many connections to pagan things in the past that cause people to hesitate to be a part of it, embrace it. And primarily with the exception of a few football games that day and a lot of food, it's about family. And most of us have a fond affinity towards our family. So it's kind of one of those things that we all naturally gravitate to. It brings a lot of good emotions, good feelings, and hopefully develops good habits in our our families.
00:01:40
Dan Sanchez
And ultimately it is a holiday that came out of a Christian tradition. You know, I i literally just studied this with homeschooled my kids. I feel like that's now becoming a recurring trend in the podcast.
00:01:50
Ridley
Yes, yes.
00:01:51
Dan Sanchez
What Dan learns from homeschooling his kids. But a lot a lot of it was stuff like we learned in elementary school with Squanto and all that kind of stuff with the Indians and Thanksgiving.
00:01:59
Ridley
Right.
00:02:00
Dan Sanchez
and But like like the Puritans that fled persecution from England and came and settled over here, dang.
00:02:01
Ridley
Yeah.
00:02:07
Dan Sanchez
What I, what one thing I did learn is how often they came here kind of unprepared for survival. They literally came with like stuff to mine gold, but didn't really think about like, Oh, we should plant crops.
00:02:17
Dan Sanchez
Cause winter's going to be long and we're not going to have enough food and we're going to die.
00:02:19
Ridley
Right. Yeah.
00:02:21
Dan Sanchez
And a lot of them did. It's amazing.
00:02:23
Ridley
And and that's why the the appearance of the Native Americans that were there was such a huge God thing to provide for them because they they didn't have a clue what they were stepping into.
00:02:24
Dan Sanchez
and
00:02:27
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:02:30
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:02:33
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, so out of God's providence, like he provided a way for a lot of them to make it.
00:02:35
Ridley
Yeah.
00:02:38
Dan Sanchez
And after multiple trips and many people coming over, they finally got a rhythm for how to do life here.
00:02:42
Ridley
Mm-hmm.
00:02:43
Dan Sanchez
And this holiday comes out of that period of of thankfulness after actually getting through some of the hardships of which many more are to come, but they got through some. So ah ah to me, this kind of brings up like this bigger question of like, why why is it important to celebrate holidays like this?
00:03:01
Dan Sanchez
what What should we be looking for as as Christians? And how do we bring Jesus into it to make him a permanent part of this? to bring how do we use How do we use the holiday essentially bring us closer to Christ?
00:03:15
Dan Sanchez
What do you do?
00:03:16
Kyle
I think as a parent, you kind of look for every opportunity you can to bring things back to the cross.
00:03:22
Kyle
Even the topic of Halloween, it's still a a great opportunity for me to to talk to my kids.
00:03:25
Ridley
Yeah.
00:03:29
Kyle
you know what are What are the dark forces of evil? all All these things, even on a pagan holiday, we can still bring it back to the cross through conversation. And so this one's like Ridley said earlier, this one's a super easy one.
00:03:42
Kyle
because it's Thanksgiving and and scripture is so adamant about us being thankful and giving thanks in all circumstances. And so it's a great opportunity to, like you said, Dan, walk your kids through the the foundations of what Thanksgiving is. And then also, what better time to get extended family inside your home and then you be the host that God wants you to be, wash their feet, have those conversations.
00:04:09
Kyle
We said it a few podcasts ago that you're not supposed to talk about religion or politics at family gatherings, but I think we have that completely wrong.
00:04:18
Kyle
and We're supposed to do it in ah in just a healthy manner of just having those conversations with our family members.
00:04:18
Ridley
Yeah.
00:04:24
Kyle
Don't make it about them. Say, hey, look what God's doing in my life. Don't say, hey, you're doing this wrong, because that's that's the family fight right there. But say, hey, guess what God's done in my life this year. Guess what God's done at Grove Hill this year. I just want to share it and be excited about those types of things. It gives you good opportunities to talk about Jesus and bring it back to the cross.
00:04:44
Ridley
Yeah, and you know, I think Kyle said it so well. It's always about bringing our kids back to this awareness that God is not something that's reserved for an hour or two on Sunday. But God is really, if we're doing this right, is supposed to be a part of every bit of our lives. And we should recognize where his fingerprints are all over our lives. The provisions he gives us, the safety he provides, the divine interactions we're given on course of day to day. So helping our kids to become more aware of those moments and just have ah awareness of how God is working seven days a week, 24 hours a day in our lives. I think that kind of brings it all to a point to a climax at Thanksgiving.
00:05:26
Dan Sanchez
I've been reading this fun book called Habits of the Household, and I'm just beginning to, I'm probably like a quarter of the way through, and I'm starting to get get into it now. But this book has has an overall premise that like we are creatures of habit, that we have habits in our lives. We are either neutral or away from Christ or pushing us towards Christ based on these normal habits. And the book kind of opens up with him being like,
00:05:52
Dan Sanchez
was another frustrating evening where, you know, he'd put his kids together bed but his kids to bed anger. And, you know, after a few instances and he's got a client like texting him on the phone and he's like, Oh, which, which, which toothbrush is your toothbrush?
00:06:03
Ridley
who Yeah.
00:06:06
Dan Sanchez
And he's like, oops, on a puddle. And he's some kids crying and that kids, he was dressed and now he's out of his PJs and running around the house with his underwear on. You're like, gosh, dang it. Like, God. He's grabbing one, kids are crying, you finally get into bed, and then right before he puts him to bed, you know he's like, oh, hold on, let me pray for you. Praise. This is the norm of my household, like but I don't want this to be the norm of my household. That's how the book opens up with his his journey into this.
00:06:33
Ridley
Yeah.
00:06:35
Dan Sanchez
And said like how do we do something better? How do we create a rhythm in our life that honors God? And so the book actually addresses like just the daily life weekly monthly and annual Celebrations, but I find that we I think in a Protestant world we lose some touch some we lose touch a little bit with traditions and the power of traditions. I like our Catholic brothers and sisters like usually cling more to this because it's more of a tradition based ah faith, if you will. And so we tend to like, you know, be like, don't want to want to make that like
00:07:10
Dan Sanchez
law that we if we don't do these traditions then we're we're out of sync with God but at the same time there is something beautiful about setting up rhythms on a daily and even on an annual level which is what Thanksgiving kind of reminds me of is like oh what a great what a great reminder to go and do the turkey and get together with family stuff but to take a break and actually think about like yes thankfulness I forget about that I should be thankful there's so many good things to bring bring forward to God and to celebrate with him
00:07:14
Ridley
Right.
00:07:40
Dan Sanchez
but what are, what are some of the habits that you guys have around Thanksgiving that you might do as a family that are like, man, this, this has actually been really fruitful, but I want to open it up to even beyond Thanksgiving. What are like annual traditions that you guys have in your households that honor God and bring, bring him into your families?
00:07:59
Ridley
mean, probably something that many of us do, um, somebody in our family, typically the matriarch of the family, uh, is the one cause they're, they tend to be very sentimental.
00:07:59
Dan Sanchez
I mean, probably some
00:08:10
Ridley
They talk about, Hey, let's, let's remember some thanksgivings. What's your favorite Thanksgiving? Those kinds of things. you know what what was special about it? And then typically at our Thanksgiving, even when I was growing up as a little kid, but even to this day we we do, you know, what do what are some things that you are thankful for? Something my wife just started doing a few years ago. rolls out this butcher paper on our table before we put the meal on the table and puts a marker at at each space and and has everybody while they're sitting there just to write things they are thankful for on the butcher paper.
00:08:41
Ridley
I think her intent was to hold on to those and all that kind of stuff is if like every year the butcher paper gets a little messy from the food of stuff. But I think it's sweet because it causes us to be intentional about thinking about things that God has done for us. I mean, you don't want to be sitting at the table who doesn't have anything written around their plate. It seems ungrateful. So you intentionally go and think about how God has blessed you during the year ahead or behind. Excuse me.
00:09:05
Kyle
I like that one very similar to what I did growing up and then what Kelly, my wife did when she was growing up, is we sit around the table. But we did it differently while the food's on the table. We go around and say what you're thankful for, and then you've always got someone that says, hey, the food's getting cold. you know So I like the butcher paper idea to get it done before the food hits the table.
00:09:25
Ridley
Yeah.
00:09:26
Kyle
But yeah, ah ah you know those those it's great to see what you're thankful for going around that table because a lot of times you're sitting with believers and non-believers and just to see the contrast, right? you know You have a believer thanking for the trial that they went through because it refined them throughout that year, or brought them to a different place. And so there's always thank you for the cross and thank you for Jesus. So again, conversation starters, and then you could see kind of pain points for other family members that you might be able to speak into. and But yeah, as far as traditions throughout the year, and just a lot of your
00:10:02
Kyle
My family, just a lot of the standard ones around Christmas, Thanksgiving, some Fourth of July stuff we would do, but and nothing nothing major. I would say i' probably I'm probably lacking in the area of different traditions throughout the year.
00:10:17
Ridley
I would say that most families probably are, and and we throw this word out there a lot. It seems like in conversations on this podcast, but just intentionality. and So many of us react to life instead of choosing how far the course of our life is going to go by being intentional, being proactive, planning things, establishing rituals, establishing expectations about things like that. And I think Probably one year for Christmas, one of the things that we did was probably one of the most meaningful for me. My wife and I, we've been very blessed. we
00:10:53
Ridley
We don't have a lot that we need and you get to this age, you don't need a whole lot of gifts or whatever. You got the money, you go buy what you need during the year. You don't you don't wait for Christmas for it. So back several years ago, my wife and I came up with the idea of making a donation to something or contributing to something that we knew each other would would want. Like for instance, I joke about my wife being a water snob. She won't just drink any kind of water. She she has a you she has a taste.
00:11:20
Ridley
And so if it's not the right kind of water, she won't drink it. So that year I actually donated money to have Wells built in villages in Africa in her name, just as an honor to her. And I can't remember what she did for me that year, but it was something really, really cool. And we've done that off and on over the last few years. I wish we'd done it every year and maybe we'll do it again this year. I don't know, but it was a different kind of ritual, a different kind of tradition that we were trying to establish that went beyond just hey let's see what if we can accumulate this year that we have to turn out the way because we don't really need it.
00:11:53
Kyle
She probably donated to Hershey's Chocolate Factory in your name.
00:11:56
Ridley
There's probably a good chance and maybe the retirement fund of Hershey's workers or something. i don't
00:12:03
Dan Sanchez
Weirdly, you said something specific that I'm like, oh, I'm going to take that. I'm going to take that one and steal it for two days from now. um But like I often do, we often have done the the giving thanks for something, but I find that especially children will say sent thank you for something in general. But what I heard, and maybe you didn't even mean to say it this way, but I heard like like giving thanks for something that it might have happened specifically.
00:12:28
Dan Sanchez
within the last year. Since it's an annual thing, I'm like, Oh, that would actually be really good. Like, what are you thankful for what God did, or provided or came through on, or healed, whatever, whatever he might have done in the last year.
00:12:32
Ridley
Yeah.
00:12:35
Ridley
Right. Yeah.
00:12:39
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, Oh, it starts to get interesting, even for children, because children can call out something specific.
00:12:40
Ridley
Yeah.
00:12:45
Kyle
Mm.
00:12:45
Dan Sanchez
If you give them, if you get a more detailed question, we'll yield more detailed answers from children is what I'm finding out.
00:12:51
Ridley
Yeah.
00:12:52
Dan Sanchez
So that would that that's something I think we're gonna take away.
00:12:54
Ridley
Yeah, and Lisa, a couple of times, she doesn't do this every year either, but a couple of times in our Thanksgiving conversation has asked the question, where's an area where you saw God moving in your life this year?
00:12:55
Dan Sanchez
is
00:13:04
Dan Sanchez
And.
00:13:06
Ridley
And, you know, our kids over the years, their answers have gotten much, obviously, more mature, but they've done everything from we got a new puppy to, to you know, God brought an end to a relationship that I knew wasn't honoring him.
00:13:20
Ridley
those kinds of things. And so it's cool to, again, just to kind of help them recognize amidst all the busyness of our lives, the places where we see god God's life touching our life.
00:13:31
Dan Sanchez
Do you think it's important to have systems and rhythms of honoring God in our daily and weekly lives? Essentially what what they used to call, not used to call, but still call liturgies and, I don't know, so systems for, I don't know, bringing ourselves back to God. Because I used to think of like hearing traditions, you think of like that, like he even brought it up before we started recording like Fiddle on the Roof, it's a great song.
00:13:56
Ridley
That kind of song kind of pops in my head every time I mention that word.
00:13:57
Dan Sanchez
traditions is something to like kind of run from as like old and stodgy.
00:14:01
Dan Sanchez
But I find now that I'm starting to get older and I have children that I'm like starting to crave it a little bit more. Where do where do you think is going after a good and where do you think you've gone too far with it if you do look for building traditions?
00:14:14
Kyle
I remember this quote I heard. I'm probably going to mess it up pretty big. but They said, traditions, if not re-examined, become chains that bind us instead of a thread that connects us. And so like the idea of a tradition becoming super repetitious and now you're just doing it because rather than to get closer to God or connect with your family is something to be afraid of. But we absolutely need repetition in our, spiritual disciplines to keep us connected to God. I think the biggest thing is staying in His Word even when you don't feel anything back. Staying connected, diving into it, and so a daily habit of being in God's Word is to me
00:15:01
Kyle
Often the most important thing rather than the message you're getting because if you stay consistent with and faithful with it, God's going to bring that stuff back to you. don't have to worry about like learning every aspect of it. It's just the the consistency of saying, you know what, I'm intentionally going to meet with my savior today. So that's important. But if you're just doing it, check, I did my Bible reading, I'm good. That's a rep repetitious tradition that may just be chaining you to self-righteousness rather than actually getting closer to to God. So I think as long as we examine those traditions and say, okay, why am I doing this every year? Why am I doing this every day? That's the most important part.
00:15:40
Ridley
Yeah, and I think another an added element, I really like that quote, you're gonna have to write that one down for me, Kyle, but listen
00:15:46
Kyle
i don't even know what i said really here let me write
00:15:49
Ridley
to the podcast. I think habits can become rigid when we allow rituals to become ritualism. and And ritualism, the difference between a ritual and ritualism is that we begin to worship the act than to recognize the reason we do the act. A perfect example in churches is the the communion that we just celebrated this past Sunday, that those become very, very empty if we just do it and don't take time to pause and reflect, as Kyle talked about, why we do these things. and so
00:16:24
Ridley
If we're not careful, we can take those rituals and we can elevate them to the focus of what we're doing rather than the they're they're supposed to be vessels that point us to something beyond themselves.
00:16:35
Dan Sanchez
Mm hmm.
00:16:37
Ridley
The ritual of brushing your teeth is about having clean teeth. you know It's not about the actual act itself. so
00:16:47
Dan Sanchez
I had missionary friends that discovered the power of a, a essentially a Christian holiday cap calendar that they'd mostly pulled from the cap Catholic Church, which we get a few of ours, but there's there's obviously, they have their calendar.
00:17:01
Dan Sanchez
If you look at the Catholic calendar, there's literally something every day. every There's like a saint every day at least that you can honor in different ways.
00:17:06
Ridley
Yes.
00:17:08
Dan Sanchez
But as they were finding people and bringing them to the gospel in different countries and different cultures, they find the culture they're coming out of was often bad in a lot of different ways but a big part of that and and you see like whole tribes saved it's like well like but if you don't bring them out of their holiday system you you can't just pull them out you have to replace it with something otherwise their their current traditions will pull them back into paganism because it's built around that traditions and holidays usually are based around whatever the culture values and if it's not christ then evaluate something else american culture is often based around like i guess consumerism right
00:17:23
Kyle
spot.
00:17:36
Ridley
Yeah.
00:17:46
Dan Sanchez
It's kind of a blend really of like the Christian Christianity and consumerism So they found that they actually were running into that problem over and over again where people were like defaulting and backsliding back into their old ways and they were like well we have to change the holidays and the traditions because it continues continually derails their faith in in and mass like a whole group of people would derail because of that so they found a lot of like
00:18:08
Ridley
I know.
00:18:12
Dan Sanchez
a lot of the reasons why tradition can be powerful because it kind of creates these rails that your life falls into. Every year we go and buy turkeys.
00:18:20
Ridley
I know.
00:18:23
Dan Sanchez
Like how often do we not have a turkey? We almost always have a turkey. And if you don't have a turkey on Thanksgiving, yeah theyre like it feels weird, right? It's like these rails that your mind is like starts gravitating towards.
00:18:34
Dan Sanchez
And I think that's kind of the power of tradition is that your brain just starts finding a way to get back into it. It falls, which is why bad habits are really hard to break because your mind so easily falls back into that groove.
00:18:43
Ridley
Right. Yeah.
00:18:45
Dan Sanchez
ah If you create good grooves, hopefully you can create you know ones that pull you back on the straight and narrow and not off of it. like I've even told Kyle, like i'm I'm hoping to create grooves in my family that are long enough and deep enough that it doesn't just affect me or or my kids, but it affects my grandkids.
00:19:03
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, how can I set pathways in our lives on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis that
00:19:03
Ridley
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:19:09
Dan Sanchez
My kids kind of just do it by default, more so.
00:19:11
Ridley
hu
00:19:12
Dan Sanchez
Like, they don't even have to think hard about it. Like, oh, what do we do on these holidays? This is what we do. This is this is how I grew up.
00:19:16
Ridley
right yeah so think yeah I think we always want to make the connection between why we started the habit in the first place or why we have the rich one in the first place though.
00:19:18
Dan Sanchez
you know And then my grandkids are essentially being discipled by almost like a default behavior. At least that's the plan. it's It's hard to do.
00:19:35
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:19:36
Ridley
I'm i'm reminded of an old story I heard years ago with a pastor who said that he knew this lady who every year when she was preparing her ham for Thanksgiving would take the ham, stick it in the cooking pan that she used to put it in the oven. She would cut off the ends. And after she had done that several years, her husband finally out of curiosity said, why do you cut off the ends? And she said, well, that's why my grandmother did it. She always cut off the end of the ham, put it in the oven. Well, after she answered him, she got to thinking, well, I really don't know why she did it. So she called her her grandmother up and her grandmother said, um I just cut it off because my ham wouldn't fit in the oven. I had a small.
00:20:12
Ridley
And so this lady, year after year, had been cutting off a ham, not knowing what the meaning behind this ritual was. And it really didn't even apply to her.
00:20:18
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:20:20
Ridley
There was no need for it. So sometimes I think we can take things because we did see people we respect do them and adopt them for ourselves without realizing the significance of them.
00:20:31
Ridley
Most of the time, there's probably some good meaning in it. And there is some application there, but many times I think we'll find we're doing things and there's no real reason for them.
00:20:39
Dan Sanchez
you know It's funny, I think that actually even applies across society. If you think about the way America is right now, why does america why do Americans behave the way they do right now?
00:20:45
Ridley
Yeah.
00:20:49
Dan Sanchez
Partly because so many generations back, we're pretty ardent believers.
00:20:54
Ridley
Yes.
00:20:55
Dan Sanchez
We're a nation founded on these principles, which is why we value democracy and law and justice.
00:20:59
Ridley
Yep.
00:21:02
Dan Sanchez
And yet right now we're kind of like, I feel like there's been a, a shift in the reprogramming to shift away from those. And you're starting to see the effects of that as philosophies from way back and based on things outside the Bible are just starting to take root down our hour playing out now. But a lot of it still even feels foreign now because so many generations are.
00:21:23
Dan Sanchez
their habits and rituals were based on the Bible. So even people now today, even if they're not Christians, still feel like this moral grounds that are actually Christian grounds because it just feels right because they've been doing it that way for so long.
00:21:38
Ridley
Yeah. So a little bit of trivia. Do you know when Thanksgiving was actually declared a national holiday in the United States.
00:21:47
Dan Sanchez
No.
00:21:48
Ridley
When you think about it, it kind of blows my mind. It was actually Abraham Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War declared it to be a national holiday.
00:21:55
Dan Sanchez
Whoa.
00:21:55
Ridley
And here is you know the worst of times in our country's history, literally brother against brother fighting to the death over this issue of slavery and states rights and all those things.
00:22:06
Ridley
and and Well, I would say that God inspired him to do this, but Abraham Lincoln goes, you know what? Maybe it's a time we need to remind our people where we've come from and what we have to be thankful for. Obviously, we we chased Thanksgiving all the way back to the original colonists who came, those people who came and set up town in Plymouth Rock and and those kinds of things. but for the president in the middle of the worst time to say, you know what, this is something our country needs to do on a regular basis to thank God for what he's done for this nation.
00:22:37
Ridley
I thought it was pretty cool that he he recognized that opportunity there.
00:22:41
Ridley
Yes, Kyle, that was some useless trivia for a game some night.
00:22:45
Kyle
I loved it. I appreciate it. Thank you.
00:22:46
Dan Sanchez
I don't think that was useless. I'm actually just kind of meditating on that now. It's kind of like, hey, so like whether this Thanksgiving is a hard one or a really good one, maybe it's been a good year, maybe it's been a hard year, just like Abraham Lincoln, is kind of like it's an opportunity to think back and remember where it's been good, to be thankful for this past year, to be thankful where where God's been faithful before.
00:22:58
Ridley
Mm hmm.
00:23:10
Dan Sanchez
And it's probably being faithful now. we just You haven't seen the light at the end to see what God's doing currently right now in your life.
00:23:13
Ridley
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:17
Dan Sanchez
But it's an opportunity either way.
00:23:21
Ridley
Agree.
00:23:22
Kyle
Yep. I think two things, Dan, you kind of offended me because we're actually not having turkey this year. We're actually having ham.
00:23:29
Dan Sanchez
o
00:23:30
Kyle
So yeah, and I guess I fell out of the grooves. but two But the second thing is is, you're right.
00:23:34
Ridley
He almost had some tennis.
00:23:35
Dan Sanchez
repair
00:23:39
Kyle
I mean, if we have breath in our lungs, then we have something to be thankful for. And so no matter what your life looks like right now, whether it's a loss of someone so dear to you or divorce or whatever it may whatever it may be that you're experiencing right now, the Bible says that with our breath and our lungs, that's how we're going to praise the Lord.
00:23:49
Ridley
Yeah.
00:23:58
Kyle
And so that's pretty basic. I mean, like if you think about it, you're breathing, you're alive. We have something to be grateful for. And so maybe start there if you're struggling to find hope in something. The name of Jesus Christ carries that hope.
00:24:13
Ridley
yeah I would say that the number one hindrance to a true heart of gratefulness is actually pride. It's this belief that you can accomplish all this on your own. You can do it yourself. And I think if if you pray daily, God keep me humble.
00:24:34
Ridley
helped me to recognize that I didn't get where I am on my own. Not only did I have friends and family who helped elevate me to this place, I had a mom and dad who raised me well and provided for me or whatever the case may be, but I have to recognize that without you giving me breath for today, I couldn't even be doing what I'm doing. And so that kind of humility opens the door, cracks the door open for us to to have a real true heart of thankfulness, like Kyle's talking about.
00:25:02
Dan Sanchez
I think we can end on that note. So happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Take a moment to think about what you're thankful for, what God's been doing in your life and the life maybe through you in the others around you.
00:25:14
Dan Sanchez
And we'll see you next week.