One looks around – and not necessarily even very far, widely or extensively, and finds wonder after wonder. The intricacy and beauty of creation is overwhelming, the complexity staggering. We agree with the Psalmist, even when we’ve got a headache or are getting older, that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’ The colours of nature – the awesome crimson and orange of an autumn forest, the echoing honks of Canada geese flying south or the blue jays songs ‘throughout the autumn lands’ – this and so much more, remind us of God’s post-flood promise to Noah, that forever long our world lasts there will be seasons – the four seasons… and all the morphing days from one into the next. Indeed, ‘Great is Your faithfulness, Lord, unto us!’
And yet, in this regard, there is ultimately, for the atheist, no One to thank. It all just happened, I guess, somehow in the distant mystery of ancient time-space and time being its own puzzle as well. And for the agnostic, thanks may not be worth bothering with, at least not in the ultimate sense. For again, Who is ‘there’ (or ‘here’ or ‘wherever’) to whom we might or should give glad praise, thanks and allegiance. Can’t know for sure… so won’t choose to seek, knock, ask at all. Nor will they find or know.
But let’s face it. Even Saints forget to give thanks. I forget. You forget.
We may take it for granted that blessings will continue to land on and around us like random snowflakes on a winter’s day. The rain that falls on the just and the unjust comes from, well…the vagaries of El Nino, or some passing cloud, or from the probability factors on the nightly weather map with its mostly near-misses of what actually happens on a given afternoon.
St Paul kept writing that he kept praying… for saints and sinners alike, but especially for the Church, those small house spin-off groups of faith-in-Jesus followers, that were springing up wherever he and Barnabas, and then Silas, showed up and preached. ‘I thank God when I remember you…,’ he would later write. He was thankful for their faithfulness and care – also in some cases, that he wasn’t beaten up (again), or imprisoned there, or scared out of town that time – thankful for what happened, was happening, or wasn’t.
One of Paul’s most eloquent prayers for the Church was in his letter to the Ephesians, no doubt also to be circulated to neighbouring towns with their small groups of believers. Once he got to a city, he looked up Jews first, and then for opportunities to share with them the Good News about Jesus. He would also go where ‘prayer was wont to be made’, to where prayer was part of the practice of the believers and God-fearers.
Thanksgiving is both necessary and life-giving — the pulse of spiritual life itself. Even when we cannot find words, the Spirit within prays on our behalf; yet that is no reason to withhold our own small voices as God’s adopted children. When our inner life resonates with God’s Spirit, remarkable things unfold: anguish may be eased, dangers diverted, and some troubles prevented altogether through prayer. In our home growing up, evening devotions followed supper. Dad would say, “Get the Book,” and a chapter of Scripture was read. Then we prayed — for family, for the church, for missionaries overseas — asking God to keep us and others from “accidents, seen and unseen.” Our nightly prayers always began with worship and thanksgiving: for daily mercies, for family life, and above all for salvation through the death and resurrection of the Saviour. Only then would we bring our requests.
My parents prayed. They knew about thanks-living. Thanks-living will lead to more knowledge of God, growth in grace, and effective and fruitful ministry. God gives more to those who invest more in Kingdom work and who are grateful for even the little they have and receive from God’s Hand. Often, the ‘many thanks’ of the Christian’s prayer leads to an increase of blessing and enabling to and through them, that will amaze them and others, too.
A ‘count-your-blessings’ and ‘give thanks for’ list will likely shorten the intercessory list, at least the one that is about our own needs and wants… and expand the sense of our working and walking and willing with Jesus in what He’s about, this day and every day, as He nudges us to touch the lives of others with words and deeds of grace.
Thank God for Thanksgiving Day, not just that it is a holiday, but that many of us in this great nation still remember to pray, are thankful for access and fellowship with our Creator, and take time and make opportunity – maybe sometimes even a day, an hour, a moment…
— to pray.
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