To Whom are You Thankful?

Hopefully this week you will be able to gather with family and consume way too many calories! I know at three family meals that we have scheduled, I will definitely be eating too much! As I do, I will almost certainly be able to look around the room and find much to be thankful for, from the food, to the family, to the homes, and cars. Even coming and going from the different relative's homes, I will be able to see the harvested field, herds of cattle, barns of animals, various industries and shops that have helped to make all this bounty possible. In the process, I will be thankful for the many people who have added greatly to my life such as my wife, my kids, my extended family, my friends, my church family, and the various communities that have added so greatly to my life. When people live sacrificially and give to others they deserve our thanks, not just at one time a year, but regularly.

But many blessings in life cannot be tied to a specific person, such as life itself, health, natural beauty, and our own gifts and talents. As a Christian, I know who to thank for these blessing. Many places in the Bible let us know that we should be thankful saying, "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Other passages let us know to whom we should be thankful saying, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever" (Psalm 107:1). When we reflect upon the world, we see that blessings are all around us every day and that many of the best parts of creation, from the intricacies of a leaf to the smile of a baby, if they are to have any meaning at all must come from somewhere or more specifically someone else. Upon reflection, we can see that, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (James 1:17). 

What if I do not believe in God or at least do not make God a regular part of my life? Where then do all these blessings come from and to whom should I give thanks? Around this time of year, I often hear people declare that we should be thankful for the good things or that we should live thankful lives. But if they do not know where the blessing comes from, who are they thanking? The universe? The world in general? Nothing? Thankfulness untethered to a deeper reality feels hollow because giving thanks should be tied to a relationship with the person who gave us the blessing. Our conscience tells us that being thankful is the right thing, but if God is not acknowledged as the origin of the blessing then our internal desire to thank someone is left empty. We end up thanking a void, which makes us feel like the emotion itself is meaningless. Conversely, our very desire to give thanks is one of the evidences that there is someone to thank!

Therefore, I encourage you this Thanksgiving time, to yes, pay attention to and even list the many blessings in your life, but also to make sure you spend time reflecting on who gave you those blessings. Pray a prayer of thanksgiving to our good God who gives us all good things.

How Kids Help Us Grow

Here is an article I wrote for the Oakland Independent in December 2016. 

Children are a gift from the Lord: they are a reward from him . . . Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Psalm 127:3 & 5

Much of our focus during the Christmas season is making it a special time for kids. From buying them just the right present to going to Christmas programs, we spend lots of time and money on our kids. At various times kids may seem like blessing or a burden, but recently I have seen how God has used my kids to help me grow. Here are some of those lessons:

From the first smile on a young babies face to a preschooler bunny hopping across the stage at the Christmas program, kids bring great joy to our lives. Experiencing life with them lets us return to the carefree times of having fun without the burdens of adult life. I love to get down on a kids level and have fun with them. It puts a smile on their face and on mine.

But kids are not all smiles, hugs and bunny hops. Often they are downright naughty, and God can use this to teach us patience and perseverance. I have become convinced that it takes about 100 times of repeating some correction for a child to finally learn a new behavior or boundary. If we give up on try 90, the child suffer and so will we. They will not learn to behave the way they should and everyone else will be impacted by their wrong behavior, so for their sake and ours we need to learn to persevere.

Furthermore, in training our kids, we have to constantly be learning. Each stage of child's life requires new ways to teach them and even to communicate with them. You cannot discipline a 16 year old who can now out wrestle you in the same way you did when he was 8. Likewise each child is different, so techniques that worked so well for one child completely fail for the next. If we don't grow in wisdom as parents, we will not be successful in helping our kids live wisely.

Further, if we don't grow in love for our kids, we will not go through the hardship of training them properly. Love is desiring the best for the other person, and kids by their very dependence force us to live for someone other than ourselves. If we resent this and don't grow in love, we become a bitter and angry, which turns our kids against us. On the other hand, if we can learn to love our kids unconditionally many of our imperfections in other areas will be forgiven, and when they mess up they will learn it is safe to confess and restore the relationship.

Finally, even with the best of efforts, we need to learn to trust our kids into God's hands. As much as we may plan, we cannot control the future, ours or theirs, so we should learn to turn them over to Him. He loves them more than we do, so it is safe to release them to Him. I have already released one son to God's hand for eternity, and I know that pretty soon my other four kids are going to grow up and leave home (or at least I hope so!).  We may as well surrender them daily to Him now so that when they leave us we have already learned to trust God with them.

Now some of you reading this may not have any kids of your own or your kids are grown and you need to relearn some of these truth, so I would invite you to invest your life in kids or even adults who need mentoring. Many kids need mentors in their lives, and when we invest our lives in others, God uses them to help us grow.