Go through His gates, giving thanks; walk through His courts, giving praise. Offer Him your gratitude and praise His holy name. Psalm 100:4 NLV
Right now people are finding it hard to be thankful, between the snow and cold I hear more grumbling than words from merry hearts filled with comfort and joy. The thankful hearts of celebrating Thanksgiving are now a distant memory and hearing the song Holly Jolly Christmas brings a bah humbug. But there is a remedy for this, it’s praising and worshiping yourself into the presence of Emmanuel, Wonderful, Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the reason for the season.
One of the most amazing place we can go, is into the presence of God when we are overwhelmed, frustrated or angry at situations and circumstances we have no control over. It is the place we can find the answers we need, the peace and comfort we long for, the feeling of being unconditionally loved we crave and the security of knowing He is always there. But we live in an ever changing world, and we find less and less time to meet with Him.
Today’s verse gives us a hint of how to achieve this. First in order to go through the gates we need to give thanks. This doesn’t take hours or is complicated, it’s as simple as voicing all the things we appreciate in life, and for each person they are different, but everybody has things to be thankful for.
Then it says that we will enter His courts when we give Him praise. Once again we all have at least one thing in our lives to give Him praise over. Even praising Him for the small insignificant things like the sunshine and yes even snow. For above for a warm house when temperatures are below average this time of year. Once you begin doing it, you will find the easier it becomes and you will be surprised how quickly something can come to mind.
Then we need to be grateful for who He is and the wonderful Lord He is to us. When we use these three steps we will find that we can enter into His throne room at anytime and anyplace. Like sitting in traffic, enjoying a sunny day, walking the dog, doing the laundry. Give it a try, I guarantee by Christmas you won’t know how you ever lived without this joy before.
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