1 Thessalonians 5:16–18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I know that the Thanksgiving holiday is coming up soon…like in a couple of weeks, but how can we be thankful in the climate that is against Christians in America and around the world? First…don’t question God about your situation. You are there in that place for a reason. Good or bad, it will be a blessing for you and you will give glory to Him for it.

Why do I say this? Because my life was a mess while I was growing up. If you don’t want to read a portion of my life story, stop reading now. My parents divorced when I was five. My Dad brought us home to my grandparent’s place, parked the trailer there that we had been living in with him and left. From that point on through the seventies and eighties my emotions were all over the place.

I thought that nobody wanted me and that’s the way I lived from day to day. From the first grade on through high school I pretty much kept to myself. I made friends but I didn’t join any “groups” in my class or participate in sports. I didn’t like school…period. I started drinking when I was in the ninth grade because there was a place in town that you could get whiskey as long as you had the money. So, every Friday night I told my mother that I was going to the football game. I did actually go but I wasn’t there for the game, I came to get drunk. Most of the time I slowly drove home and I was not caught being drunk until I wrecked my Mom’s car one night.

To make a long, boring story short, my teenage years weren’t much fun. After I graduated, I worked for the first summer with my Dad in Florida while Irby was putting power lines through the Everglades. Hot and sticky doesn’t describe how those swamps felt during the summer of ’79. I did attempt to go to a junior college that fall but I drank more than I studied, so I quit after the first semester and joined the Air Force. Still looking for a place to fit in.

I won’t bore you with life after all of this because it was up and down for many years until I got married to a wonderful girl and a few years after that we had a baby boy. That is when God got my attention. I had given my life to Jesus a few years before my son was born but I didn’t know how to be an example for him and that is the “job” that God wanted me to take on. I began studying the Bible and praying about being a good example. Of course, the answer was to be more like Jesus.

Why have I written this way today? Because, the young people in America and around the world need to know Jesus. They need to see grown-ups living out their faith. Yes, there have been revivals since Charlie Kirk was killed and there will likely be many more because young people are hungry for Someone real to follow and Jesus can fill that empty space that I felt years ago and that many feel today. Your life can have an impact on someone. Make sure that your impact is one that Jesus would approve of. Make your life into a discipleship of following Jesus so that others will want to follow Him too.

My brief testimony about the lonely life I had due to a broken home shouldn’t impress anyone and I doubt that it will, but I pray that anyone who reads this would seek to know Jesus as their Savior. He is the One who can bring joy to each of us in the good times and during bad times too. God loves us and sent Jesus to pay for our sins so that we might be forgiven if we only place our faith in Jesus for our salvation. It requires nothing on our part except for belief in Him for our salvation. Begin your new life with Him today so that you will be in His family for eternity.