Years ago I remember first sitting with a simple nugget of wisdom… it may be a little chicken-and-egg-ish, not quite certain of which one came first. But I remember the profoundness embedded in one of the reasons we sometimes struggle with faith… we quit acknowledging God; we stop thanking Him; we omit Him increasingly more from the conversation. And the more we omit Him, we become a little more wise in our own eyes.
Evidence of God has always existed. Look up. See the stars and the sky. Look around. See the Earth and the beauty of both the mountains and the sea. Look at others. See the masterful creativity in our diversity.
No, I don’t question whether God exists. While clearly we can’t figure all things out on this planet — why some things play out the way they do or why the bad stuff happens — I can’t allow my questions to stifle my belief; there’s just too much I have to ignore to believe that God doesn’t exist. And as noted English writer G.K. Chesterton once penned, “When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing; he believes anything.” Yeah, with absolutely all due respect, anything and everything simply doesn’t make sense.
But what I also know to be true is that there is great grace in this journey. You and I don’t have to be in the exact same place. It would be silly to expect that be true. The next step for you and for me and for all who be is never to be expected to be exactly the same. That’s why judgment makes zero sense.
With Thanksgiving upon us, I want to pause and be intentional — encouraging the intentional offering of gratitude. Each of our individual lists vary. So consistent with an Intramuralist practice, allow us to learn from a leader, a former President. It would be only a little more than two weeks after writing this, that Pres. John F. Kennedy would lose his life to an assassin’s bullet on a trip to Dallas, Texas. Here he humbly proclaimed “a day of national thanksgiving” in November of 1963…
“… Today we are a nation of nearly two hundred million souls, stretching from coast to coast, on into the Pacific and north toward the Arctic, a nation enjoying the fruits of an ever-expanding agriculture and industry and achieving standards of living unknown in previous history. We give our humble thanks for this.
Yet, as our power has grown, so has our peril. Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers–for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings–let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals–and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world…
… let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist.”
May we be wise. May we be a people known for our intentional thanksgiving.
Respectfully…
AR