Giving Thanks? Really?

Giving Thanks – Why?

Tomorrow is a day designated as the time we reflect and give thanks for all of our blessings, both large and small.

But can we really give thanks when someone we dearly cherish is desperately ill or when our spouse of many years has taken the trip to eternity this year?

I know that God’s word teaches us that He makes it rain on the just and the unjust. He created us all, therefore he loves us all terribly. We make him smile and we also make him grieve.

But we’ve lost dear friends, comrades in faith and even our Mother this year, how do I REALLY give thanks?

I heard a familiar tune this week at the memorial service of a friend. The tune is called “God is Good - all the time”. The grieving (but joyful) family sang along with this song because their husband, dad and grand-dad believed this little catchy song. That God IS good ALL the time. In the good and the bad.

From my limited knowledge of God and His place in my life I know that he has strategically placed me or allowed me to be in situations when good has resulted when all indicators pointed toward defeat. This concept is hard to verbalize or explain to folks who don’t yet know and understand the grace and mercy of God. It is outside of reason and comprehension. And I understand. It’s a faith thing. It’s a God thing.

Unrighteousness or “darkness”, if you will, is blinded by the bright light of truth and goodness. But as we all know from living on a planet that craves and needs light for sustenance and survival, we also deeply crave truth and “light” in our human lives.

Even if we are not willing to openly express this, our creator placed an urge in us to desire goodness, even though this seems to be in contradiction to our nature after the “fall” of man. Our tendency or “bent” to do wrong is strong and came to us because of what happened in a garden one day. But I submit to you that the urge God imparts a “longing for truth”. And that force is greater, wider and deeper than we can possibly understand or fathom. Some call it “imputed righteousness”.

How can righteousness be injected or “imputed”? Does God insert a magic syringe and give us goodness and faith? Might be a graphic way of saying it, but He does inject into those who know Him, His very “own” righteousness. That new force breaks the bent to wrong and replaces it with a bent to do what we “know” is right. And that struggle goes on each day we live.

Have you experienced the injected righteousness of God? If so you do have something HUGE to be thankful for. Not “injected” yet? Ask me and I will tell you how.

I am VERY thankful for the wife and children (grands too) God has blessed me with. I bless His name for giving me a healthy body and a good job in a tough economy. I prayed today that God would give me a renewed for compassion for others that are going through dark times. I feel his hand moving today. Do you?