To celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ve curated a collection of some of our Thanksgiving themed devotionals for you to enjoy as you prepare for the upcoming week. All of us at Walk His Way wish you a very blessed and Happy Thanksgiving.

“I said, ‘I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, while the wicked are before me.’” Psalm 39:1

Gathering With Unbelievers

Walk His Way Revisited

When I read the first four verses of Psalm 39, I was reminded of family gatherings during holidays past. I know many of us will be sharing the holidays with unbelievers, so I share my thoughts.

Many of us have families that do not consist entirely of believers. You’ll be sitting around the table, and the conversations you will be included in will have gossip, backbiting, faultfinding, criticism, and opportunities to stir up division. You’ll be standing around with the cousins, and the off-color jokes will abound.

What to do, when surrounded by unbelievers? David gives us some help in Psalm 39. His way of presenting himself was this: he kept his mouth shut, and he guarded his ways. He prayed for God to help him not do or say the wrong things, those things that would give occasion for the wicked to shame and fault his testimony.

“I was mute with silence…” (verse 2). He was a non-participant in hurtful conversations. “I held my peace even from good…” He made a resolute decision not to cast his pearls before swine, knowing his gentle, righteous words would be trampled. “My sorrow was stirred up…” His heart wasn’t self-righteous, but saddened at how they were living, what they were missing in life.

“My heart was hot within me…” (verse 3). Anger burned as he began to think of how deceived they were, how they were hurting others and themselves by their conversation and lives, and how this all grieved the Lord. Since he was not joining in, he could stand back and “muse” or meditate on what was going on around him. If we join in this talk, we aren’t likely to hear that still, small voice telling us to remove ourselves and THINK before we speak.

And then, the prayer in verse 4. “LORD, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.” This is a godly response to standing back and seeing lives lived in unrighteousness. Lord, don’t let me live as if there is no eternity. Teach me to be careful with my days. I’m not asking You to show me how I will die, but just to be aware that indeed, I will die one day, and this one earthly life I’ve been given is the only chance I’ll have to do kingdom work, to know God and bless Him, to be thankful to Christ for all He has done, and to live by the Spirit Who lives within me.

Our lived-out testimony (God’s love in us) before those who don’t follow Jesus is what will draw them to Him. What we do and say—or don’t do and say—is our testimony. It’s how our unsaved family members will perceive Christ.

I read an anonymous poem in Streams in the Desert*. Here is one verse:

Go make thy garden as fair as thou canst,

Thou workest never alone;

Perhaps he whose plot is next to mine

Will see it and mend his own.

Lord, as we gather with our friends and families, help us to be wise in our speech and actions, knowing that this is our testimony of Your work in us. May the words of our mouths, and the meditations of our hearts, be pleasing to You.

*Cowman, Charles E., and James Reimann. Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings. Zondervan, 2016.