THANKSGIVING - 2009

There was a man whose job it was to transport people who had been committed to a mental hospital. After delivering a patient one day, the man was walking to his car when a voice called out, “Hey, you.” It came from the upper floor of the hospital. Looking up, he asked, “Are you speaking to me?” The response was, “Yes, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever thanked God for a healthy mind?” The man suddenly realized that after taking people to that hospital for fifteen years, he had never once thanked God for a good mind.

During this month when we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, it is good to be reminded of those things that we take for granted. It is good to remind ourselves that God is our Creator. Psalm 100 states that “It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves”. David writes in Psalm 139 “that we are fearfully and wonderfully made”. Fearfully here means “to venerate, to have reverence for”. The same word is used in context “to fear the Lord.” “Wonderfully” means “to separate, distinguish in order to make wonderful.” Those verses also refer to how God is intensely aware of and carefully at work with the development of the unborn.

Much of modern philosophy is at odds with the idea that it is God “who has made us and not we ourselves.” There is a claim that we emerged from the ooze and through time we developed into what we are today. Many in that camp refuse to acknowledge a personal creator. They tell us that nature, left to its own devices, allowed for life and that “We are the highest developed form of life in the universe – so we get to define who we are.” The idea behind this is that if God exists, then we must be him or her. Christians, however, can be thankful that we have a Creator who is personal and who has revealed Himself in Scripture. He defines who we are and what our relationship is to Him. Simply put, “We do not make ourselves. It is He who makes us.”

John Haldone, a scientist, suggested to a monsignor that the universe with its millions of planets made it inevitable that life would appear by chance on one of them. The monsignor responded, “Sir, if Scotland Yard found a body in your Saratoga trunk, would you tell them, ‘There are millions of trunks in the world. Surely one of them must contain a body.’ I think they still would want to know who put it there.” I am thankful that man is not the highest form of life. God is our Creator. It is good that we take the time to think about that and let him know that we are thankful for Him.

Pastor Jeff