Pastor’s Page
Volume 12 Week 48
My Deepest, Greatest
Thanksgiving!
Thankful for Blessings of
this Life & for the Promise of Things to Come!
As I make my annual list of things for which I am thankful, I’m embarrassed, as always, that there are so many things on my list, and that I am so slow to give thanks throughout the year. There are clearly far too many things I take for granted.
I like to think I’m a thankful, grateful person. I know and believe in the deepest place of my heart that the earth and all that is in it does indeed belong to the Lord. I’m very thankful that He has been so extremely generous to me, surrounding me with so many benefits.
I catch myself saying, “Thank you, Lord!” fairly often. I notice a theme in my thankfulness, however. When something goes good, say for example, when I miss the deer in the roadway and avoid injury and expensive car repairs, I say, “Thank you, Lord!” When the bills are a little lower one month, when the lawnmower starts on the first pull, when my team wins the World Series, or when the dog comes home when I call, it’s pretty easy to say, “Thank you, Lord!”
It’s a little tougher on the days when things aren’t going so smoothly.
When I count my blessings and make my list, right there at the top is my family. There’s not enough room in this short column to even begin to express what a joy it is to have the privilege of sharing life with a loving, Christian wife and children such as I have. It’s hard for me to imagine life without them, and my days are, to a great degree, measured by the milestones of blessing and joy and love that we share together.
My heart aches for those around me who enter this Thanksgiving season without someone whom they love so dearly by their side. So many among us have said farewell to family members since we last sat around the turkey. That empty seat, that may have sat empty now for quite a few Thanksgivings, tempers the joy of the occasion.
I dread the day of seeing that empty seat at my family table, or of making that Thanksgiving long-distance phone call and missing a voice on the line that is dear to me.
Good health is another treasure that I take for granted too often. I’m more likely to complain about the aches and pains, (or the sluggish golf swing that comes with age,) than I am to thank God for the strength and flexibility that do remain in these old bones. There really is no replacement for good health, is there?
I often have the chance to sit with those among us whose strength is waning and for whom the burden of ill health and disease is taking a great toll. Sometimes as I pray for you, I silently wonder when sickness will come my way, and how I will respond. I wonder whether God’s grace will be sufficient for me when it’s my turn. I wonder how my Thanksgiving will be when it is shaped by pain or by weakness.
I’ve lived in and seen the beauty and the greatness of what I consider to be the greatest, most blessed nation on earth. I’ve often been greeted in the morning by the purple mountains majesty and I’ve eaten luscious bounty from the fruited plain just about every single day of my life. I’m as guilty as anyone of grabbing an apple as I run out the door and chomping away without so much as a whisper of a “Thank you, Lord!” for such a wonderful gift, a taste that many in this world have never experienced.
And I’ve read the morning news, voted to throw the bum out of office, checked a book out of the library, dropped a personal and private letter in the mailbox and drifted soundly off to sleep at night without ever thinking a thankful thought for the freedoms and privileges I enjoy because God is so good to me and because others fought and died that I might enjoy the benefits of living as a twenty-first century American. I’m as spoiled as anybody.
And I can’t help but wonder how long these kinds of freedoms and benefits can be taken for granted. And on this Thanksgiving, I can’t help but remember the thousands and millions of Americans who still go hungry, who still do not have that place to lay their head, who still live in danger of violence and abuse and neglect. I wonder how thankful I’d be if I lived on another part of the globe, or in a time that did not present me with such comforts as I daily take for granted.
Some of
the things I enjoyed about
But I have a source of joy and thanksgiving that can never be taken away. Even if the Rockies should crumble and tyranny and oppression should overtake our land, I am a citizen of a greater kingdom where the love of Jesus Christ is our governing value, where peace such as the world can never give prevails, and where the freedom from sin and death and the power of the devil can never be taken away from me by any force of the universe.
I
thank God for
And I’m thankful for my fellow Americans, for leaders and neighbors and friends. But I’m far more thankful for my fellow citizens of God’s kingdom, who pray for me and encourage me and who, by their faith and witness to God’s grace, are carrying me through this life and on across the finish line.
I thank God for the health and vitality He has given me, that on most days, I still feel like a young man. But as I move from crawling on all fours to walking upright on two, eventually moving on until one day I’m leaning over and hobbling along with the help of a third leg to prop up my weary bones, I thank God that I live by the promise of the dance of the saints, when we will gather around Jesus and marvel at our new bodies in the resurrection.
And I thank God for my dear family, and those I love at the far ends of those telephone lines. But I thank God most of all that because of the gift of faith in a Savior who gave His life that we might live eternally, that even though we’ll one day bid our farewells in this life, we’ll be together in God’s forever family someday.
So I’ll enjoy our nation’s Day of National Thanksgiving, sitting in my safe home, eating the best food in the world, surrounded by my family, saying, “Thank you, Lord!” for all His goodness to me.
And I’ll quietly say, “Thank you, Lord!” for the very best which is yet to come.