Today’s Thanksgiving Day and I’m thanking The Lord for all of you! In today’s video, I want to talk to you about thanking God in advance.

Giving thanks ahead of time is the biggest sign of faith. It shows that you believe so much that God is faithful to provide and bless you, that you thank Him before you EVEN see any evidence of it! That’s what we’re talking about today. I hope you’ll be blessed by it!

Resources Mentioned:

Thrive Bible Study Vault: https://ashleyvarner.com/thrive
Walking in Confidence Bible Study: https://ashleyvarner.com/confidence

Highlights From The Episode:

Hey there my friends, and happy Thanksgiving to you. I wanted to jump on this week and really share a little bit about giving thanks in advance. This is gonna be kind of shorter. But I just want to jump on here and say thank you for being part of my community, and my life, showing up to learn more about taking your thoughts captive, and learning how to get control of your emotions. Since thankfulness is an emotion. I really wanted to jump on today and share a couple of things about giving thanks in advance. Let’s get started.

Hey, there my friends and welcome back to The Renewed Mind. I am so glad that you are here and I wanna say thank you for being here. Whether this is your first time or you have been a fan of this channel for a long time. I just wanna say thank you for your support. It means so much to me. I’m so thankful that you have entrusted me to speak into your walk with the Lord each and every week.

Let’s talk a little bit about what it means to thank God in advance because this isn’t something that I hear taught very much. But I think it’s something that once I started doing this, it changed the trajectory of my life literally. I want to talk to you about this idea of giving thanks ahead of time and how it is really a sign of faith.

So there are so many times that we say thank you to the Lord or we give thanks for things that we already have, things he’s already done, but what if we started thanking him for things he is going to do? What if you thanked him today for a provision that you haven’t seen yet? What if you thanked him today for things that you need that you know he’s gonna provide for? I’m talking about thanking God for things like his provision before you receive it.

Maybe there’s a bill that needs to be paid, and you don’t have the money for it yet, you can thank God in advance for what he is going to do. Another area might be praying and thanking God for his protection before there’s even a need for it.

I think a great example of this is if you’re taking a trip and you ask the Lord for protection. But you also say, thank you God for the protection that you’re gonna give us on this trip. What that says to me is that that is a sign of faith to say, God, I know that you are already going to answer this prayer.

Another area might be saying thank you for his blessing before it comes to pass. Or being thankful for his victory before you even see it because God is a God of yesterday, today, and forever. And so the things that he is already going to be doing for you in the future. How amazing would it be if we said thank you to God for those things before they even happened?

And the reason why I’m even bringing this up is that I really believe that giving thanks ahead of time shows the Lord that you understand his character. Giving thanks ahead of time shows God that you understand his character. And who he is because two big aspects of God’s character are his faithfulness and his goodness.

Those are characteristics of God. And whenever we can say thank you for those things before we even see them come to pass. I think that he sees that as a sign of faith to say, my child knows that I’m good. My child knows that I’m faithful and they’re already thanking me in advance for the things that they trust that I’m gonna do. I don’t think that there’s any better way that we can show our faith than to ask God for things, but also thank him for those things ahead of time.

This is something that I’ve been working on in my own life in the last several weeks because I wanna be the kind of person that says, thank you to God just for being who he is. And I even remember a prayer that I prayed where I said, God, I want you to show me how I can show you that I trust you in this particular situation.

I hope that didn’t seem confusing. I wanted to ask God to show me what I need to do to prove that I’m trusting you and that I believe you. And that I am stepping out in faith, show me how I can step out in faith. And one of the ways that he showed me was by being thankful ahead of time. Saying thank you for things that I haven’t received yet. Saying thank you for his blessing, or the adoption of a child, or whatever it is before it even happened.

Now that’s something my husband and I adopted a child a little almost a year ago. I remember saying thank you to God during that time and during the season that we were going through. With that to say, God, thank you for what you’re doing, thank you for what you’re going to do.

And in this journey that you’re on. Whatever it is that you are asking the Lord for. What if you changed some of your prayers to say, God, thank you for this provision. Thank you for this blessing that you’re going to give me and you’re thanking God ahead of time. Because the other thing it does is not only does it show God that you understand his character. But you also start to change your character, right?

You start to have more faith because you start to see the things that God is doing. You’re more aware of what he’s doing before it even happens. I’ve talked a lot about how when you live your life with expectations you start to see things that you normally wouldn’t notice.

So whenever you are seeking the Lord and you are going after him and you’re thanking him for how he’s gonna bless you. Or you’re thanking him for how he’s gonna show up in your life. Now you are more aware of what he wants to do, so he starts acting on your behalf. And because you’ve been thanking him for that and you’ve been seeking him for that, you start to see the results, right?

It’s not because of anything you’ve done, except that you’re more aware of what he’s doing. So if you thank God for his provision. Then you get a coupon in the mail for a free dinner. You start to see that as his provision, not just junk mail, right?

There are so many different examples, and if you have any make sure that you leave them in the comments because I would love to hear how you speaking to the Lord and being expectant of him and how that changes you. Because I think that whenever we live a life of faith when you step out and you live a life of faith and part of that is giving thanks ahead of time, what you begin to do is you start to see God everywhere. And being thankful ahead of time means that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. You’re stepping out into that realm of faith.

I remember a story about a pastor who went to a prayer meeting because there was a big drought in their area. He went to this prayer meeting to pray for rain. And as he was leaving his daughter said, well aren’t you gonna take your umbrella to the prayer meeting? And he had to laugh because when he went he was the only one that had an umbrella. She was thanking God ahead of time for what he was gonna do. She was having an act of faith to say, Lord I believe that you’re gonna send rain. So I’m gonna thank you for that and I’m gonna bring an umbrella.

So I want that to encourage you on this Thanksgiving day to be not only thankful for the things you already have, but be thankful for the things that you’re going to have. Be thankful for the things that God is doing. The way that he’s working on your behalf and the victories that he is winning for you even before you see the results.

All right, that is all that I have for you. Again, I wanna say thank you to you for being such amazing people, listening, and an amazing community. And I hope that you guys have enjoyed this whole gratitude series next month we’re going to be jumping into our Dream series and I really hope that you don’t miss it.

Make sure to subscribe, so that you don’t miss a single video. And I will talk to you guys next time, have a great week.