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| Thanksgiving Sermon |
| Written by Pastor Kuder | |
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Recently, I was reading some information about Thanksgiving and as I was reading, I came across a certain story by an unknown author that I’d like to share with you. “One day, two men were walking through a field when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted towards the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn't make it. Terrified, the one shouted to the other, "Put up a prayer, John. We're in for it!" John answered, "I can't. I've never made a public prayer in my life." "But you must!" implored his companion. "The bull is catching up to us." "All right," panted John, "I'll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table: 'O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.'" 2008 … it’s been an interesting year. We managed to get through another presidential election process. We voted, we debated, we debated some more and then finally, … finally we elected a new president. And then, there’s all of that business that happened with Wall Street … that has impacted so many people. Once again, our country was brutally attacked by hurricanes. This time by Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Hannah. We also had the wind storm that knocked out power for so most of us. And for some of us that power outage lasted almost two weeks. And then there’s the ongoing battle which continues to go on in Iraq. And it doesn’t matter whether you’ve taken a side regarding this war or not…because in one way or another, we all have felt its effects. It would seem that we all have had some sort of trauma this past year. Various surgeries, abuse of some sort or another, increased financial issues, and/or loss of loved ones. And the list could go on and on. Oh, and tomorrow, it’s Thanksgiving. … “O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.” That’s not always an easy thing to do is it? … To be thankful for certain things that is? But let’s stop for a minute. Let’s change gears a little. There’s a person that I once knew that I want to tell you about. Her name’s Mary. Now Mary, Mary was a fantastic person. And when I first knew her, she was one of those people who just had it all. She was gorgeous. She had come from a family who was very well to do. So money had never been a problem for her. And she was the type of person that whenever she decided to do something, you knew that she was going to be good at it. It would have seemed, as they say, that the world was her oyster. But there was something wrong with Mary. And she didn’t know about it till it was already upon her. You see, Mary had M.S. or multiple sclerosis. All of this had come on while I had been away for some time. And by the time I had come back to the area, Mary’s condition had progressed fairly far along. In fact, when I did see her next, she was confined to a bed…and the only thing that she could do for herself, other than speak, was to blow into a straw that was by her head, which would call a nurse for her. During our visits together, Mary would talk very candidly with me. We would talk about T.V. and people, about other residents in the place where she now lived, and she would also talk about her faith. And this almost always caught me off guard. I mean here was a woman who had had it all and now was confined to a bed, unable to do anything for herself. One day, during one of our last visits with each other, Mary told me something that has always stayed with me. She told me that she was happy that she had gotten M.S.. She was happy because of what it had done for her. When she told me this I thought to myself, “Done for you? It’s confined you to a bed!” But Mary went on. She said that if she had not had M.S. that she would have walked farther and farther away from God. Mary had found a way to be thankful for what she had. She had found a way to be thankful for something that most of us would have seen as a punishment. She had, in a sense put on different lenses to see the world through. “O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.” I think, for many of us we have the problem of equating our blessings with our circumstances. We have this bad tendency to feel like God is not with us if things aren’t going as well for us as we’d like. But what if we stopped equating those two with each other? What if we stopped focusing on all of the perceived bad in the world and began to consider the fact that the real blessing is the fact that we have a God who is with us. That we have a loving Savior who died on the cross for us. That we have a God who will never leave us…no matter what. This would mean that we would realize that we have a loving heavenly Father who never leaves us nor forsakes us…ever. It would remind us that we have a Savior whose sacrifice redeems us. It would help us to thank the almighty healer in the middle of our hurt. To thank Him because we know that He is the one who will get us through the hurt. While we may not always give thanks for our circumstances…we can always give thanks for who He is. |