How Many Days are Thanksgiving at Your Home?
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13
NOVEMBER 16, 2025
Count your blessings name them one by one …Count YOUR BLESSINGS see what God has done … and so goes another of those old hymns of the church. I wonder how many of us actually have a numerical count of our blessings? I wonder how many of us have as our primary focus in life … the blessings … that we have received? Are we focused on giving thanks … you know focused on Thanksgiving every day in our homes or do we have other priorities that take up our thought processes and our conversations.
Ah, those conversations that we have … are there blessings in our chit chat moments with other people? Blessings for ourselves or even blessings for those who hear us?
I have been blessed these last couple of days with a few surprises … blessed by others whose words I have heard. Blessed by total strangers … blessings wrapped up in these strangers’ open connections with each other and me that included God … with Christ.
“And, you will say on that day: “Thank the Lord, call on God’s name; proclaim God’s deeds among the peoples; declare that God’s name is exalted.”
It’s interesting that Jesus in response to a challenge from a woman in a crowd after having just told those gathered that, “Whoever isn’t with me is against me and whoever doesn’t gather with me, scatters,” Jesus in that moment used a Scriptural phrase most of us know, Blessed are those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice.” Another translation of Luke’s Gospel uses the word Happy instead of blessed but when we are blessed aren’t we happy? And when we are happy doesn’t that provide us with an excellent opportunity to share thanksgiving … GIVING OUR PERSONAL STORY of THANKS for God’s blessings with all of those we meet and encounter? Do we focus on blessings in our lives in the words we use or something else?
With the OFFICIAL holiday coming up in another week, Thanksgiving, my ultimate favorite holiday that traditionally was the first day that snow flakes blew across the fields of Aunt Hazel’s farm fields before we sliced the turkey … some of the voices I have heard over these last few days have me wondering … perhaps even concerned … as to how many of their days are truly days of thanksgiving … in our lives and in our homes on how many of those 24 hour days of ours are we showcasing God’s blessings through expressions of thanksgiving to those we meet. But then I had breakfast and I slept in a box and I was witness to God’s blessings through the words of others.
Last week I reminded all of you of Matthew and Luke’s written history of Jesus’ last words on earth … the very last words of our Savior any of us will have available until we meet him face-to-face when the pressures sung of in Mercy Me’s popular song become a real experience to each of us … “I can only imagine … surrounded by Your glory what will my heart feel? Will I dance for You Jesus, well not so sure if He will appreciate my dancing abilities … or in awe of You be still … Will I stand in Your presence … or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah?” Will I be able to speak at all … but until that moment of eternity the last words of direction … Jesus’ last teaching moments that to any of us who are truly believers and followers of the Messiah … folks connected with God’s precious Son through faith are His words telling us that we are to use our life experiences to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I, Jesus, have commanded you, Jesus believers or in our popular terminology CHRISTIANS. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you WILL BE my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.””
And friends, the best methodology to be witnesses … to share the teaching of Jesus … to allow the world … your small corner of the world to discover God’s reality … God’s love … is to share God’s blessings not your complaints and whining about all that has gone wrong but to celebrate that one day you will be excitedly be appearing before the Holy throne knowing you will be welcome … knowing you will be accepted by God and your only debate in those moments will be how you will react surrounded by His glory … until then we can only imagine that glorious day when this short journey is complete.
I have always loved the going out for breakfast experience, I think my parents showcased the value of breakfast out to us … and it’s not about the food because most breakfast food is rather easy to prepare. It’s all about watching people, interacting with those we care about, and getting served as the day begins. Plus COFFEE!
I started early on this past Friday seeing my HEART FAILURE doctor. I know … what a title and Ross and I laugh about that. Just an FYI, Ross is one of the best docs I know, he works for Penn, and if you ever need a cardiologist I can text Ross to get you an early appointment. But during that appointment my doc and I reflected on how well I am doing … how blessed I am … how fortunate I am to be here today and capable of spending a Friday night in a cardboard box. I really like Dr. Zimmer … even though I had not had my coffee yet he gave me a wake up reminder as I looked around that small exam room … I smiled knowing I am blessed but perhaps I needed the reminder because like all of you I have enough “stuff” that I could complain about but I was really hungry for breakfast after seeing Ross so off I went to a diner near Cherry Hill that I chose randomly because it was close by and there it happened … a blessing from blessings.
As I enjoyed my meal and COFFEE … a group of men started to fill a long table next to mine. They were smiling … they were laughing … they were doing fist bumps and handshakes … so I just had to ask, so I stood up and went over and asked, why are you all together. And, the one man said to me that they were a church men’s group out for their monthly breakfast … TOGETHER … men of faith out to eat.
I smiled and said I was a pastor and they smiled and we talked and we laughed. I think that if I wasn’t finished with my breakfast that they would have made room for me at their table … not that it mattered in the least but they didn’t happen to look like me their skin tones were a slight bit darker but they were showcasing joy and I felt like I was one of their group. They made me feel welcome … and yes loved and blessed.
When their last member walked in after the orders were taken I went over and said, “at our men’s breakfast the last guy in buys for everyone” and they laughed carefully looking at their last member hoping … but as I was getting ready to leave they called me over to tell me how blessed they all were … smiles shone like God’s bright morning sun … one man took my hand looking me in the eyes and blessed me … there was a love energy emanating from that table …I was so blessed … they shared their blessings … suddenly they remembered that they had forgotten to pray so as I was walking away I heard words being lifted up to God … it was a moment of thanksgiving for me and I know for them … I walked into that Camden County sunshine feeling blessed in so many ways.
Later on Friday night I headed to Atlantic City because it was my night to sleep in a cardboard box out on the street to raise money and awareness for Covenant House. If you don’t know, Covenant House rescues homeless young adults from the streets offering them hope, recovery and a future. These homeless kids as I call them come from all walks of life and while on the streets they are at great risk from the sex slave trade, gangs, drug dealers, violence or even from the temptations of suicide because they just don’t know where to turn. Covenant House rescues as many as they can so I sleep out along the streets of that resort city in a box each November on a Friday night.
But before we hit the streets there was a program where we heard the stories of adults who were rescued when they were lost kids searching for hope. Young adults whom you would never have imagined had dealt with parental sexual abuse … a failed foster care system … the deaths of both parents leaving them as kids trying to figure out the why’s and wherefores’s of life. If you saw these Covenant House alumni today at the grocery store you’d just walk by them perhaps not even smiling at them because who wants to smile at strangers, right much less share blessings. In the past I have been shocked twice to see two kids whose parents I knew … Covenant House saved them from the streets. And, some of you I am sure had some realities in life that you had to fight through to become the person you are today.
But one young man when he walked in … looked so familiar to me … you see I focus on eyes and noses haha … this portion of a face I focus on when I meet someone, and I could swear that I knew Shawn. He had been rescued from the streets in 2008 and then again in 2010. A long time ago but back then I was leading a Bible study there … I was sure I knew him but then Shawn got up before this group of diverse box sleepers … before folks with money and with lives … he first smiled thanking his wife for coming with him. He mentioned his two kids and his job with AtlanticCare but then Shawn preached … Shawn shared … Shawn lifted us up … blessed me with words.
He talked about the bread of Communion being about broken lives but then pulled together by Jesus as a unifier. He talked about our need to find God in a challenging world. He shared that he had done time because he had nothing and no way to even buy food, so he took from others, but his life was turned around after being upside down. Friends he preached the realities of God’s love … God’s power to rescue some we might consider worthless and he smiled … oh did Shawn smile. He dropped Scripture lessons and then he resonated with James’s lesson … FAITH WITHOUT WORKS is DEAD Shawn said … he said he was almost dead back then 15 years ago … but he was rescued … he found God … and then his words hit me … When God blesses you … you have to share your blessings with others so that they too can find God and Jesus and be blessed.
Before he and his wife left … Shawn and I held each other staring into each other’s eyes … we held each other tight rocking in a hug … whispering faith words … basically strangers but I could swear I had met him before … he said maybe in that Sunday Bible study … maybe.
And, then we held a memorial service reading names of kids … young adults … who died on the streets … didn’t make it … perhaps no one ever shared their blessings … or shared total love of neighbors … didn’t preach at them but showed how living with God was a blessing … we held candles it was my turn to read the names given to me … DONALD W. And a bell rang softly … Marvin B. Another bell … don’t think I knew them … hope they were blessed … but they died on the streets … believe me I was counting blessings as I fell asleep curbside in a box … how many thanksgiving days do you have each year and how many moments do you share God’s love … DONALD W MARVIN B AMEN