Monday, November 24, 2008
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A Moment of Thanks
Dr. David Jeremiah
Life is hard, and every day is challenging. You may be wondering just now if
you can go on. Perhaps another person is vexing you. Perhaps you've been
maligned
or criticized. You're discouraged with unanswered prayer. Maybe you're feeling
like Elijah under the broom tree, wanting to die.
Try praying with thanksgiving. A thankful attitude is the cure for many
emotional ailments. Take depression, for example. What is depression or
discouragement
except the total collapse of thanksgiving in our lives?
Thanksgiving is also the opposite of discontent. It's easy for us to become
disgruntled with various factors in our lives; but let's be like one man who
was thankful...
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* For the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough
to eat.
* For all the complaining I hear about the government because it means that
I have freedom of speech.
* For the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means
that I am alive.
* For the teenager who is not doing dishes but is watching TV because that
means he is at home and not on the streets.
* For the taxes that I pay because it means that I'm employed.
* For the lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters
that need fixing because it means I have a home.
* For weariness at the end of the day because it means I have been capable
of working hard.
* For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it
means I am capable of walking and that I have been blessed with transportation.
Thanksgiving is the opposite of anxiety. Philippians 4:6: "Be anxious for
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known to God." Worship and worry cannot live in the same
heart. They are mutually exclusive, according to Ruth Graham.
Thanksgiving is also the corrective for sadness and even grief. While working
on a message from Psalm 100, my phone rang. It was from a family dear to me.
Our children were about the same age and had played together growing up.
The caller told me there had been an accident in the woods, and a portion of a
tree had fallen on one of the boys. He'd been pinned for over an hour before
the ambulance arrived, and it appeared the young man would be paralyzed from
the waist down. His spinal cord had been crushed.
Well, that just destroyed my afternoon. I couldn't get it out of my mind. This
was a blond-headed kid, very athletic, full of life; and in one moment, his
life was shattered and changed. I wrestled with my own thoughts and emotions
until evening, then I placed a call to the intensive care unit of the hospital.
Frankly, I didn't know what to say; but I didn't have to say much at all. The
boy's father ended up comforting me.
He said, "Pastor, I want you to know that my wife and I are, first of all,
thankful that our son is alive. Second, we're thanking God that it wasn't the
upper part of his body that was paralyzed. And thirdly, though we don't
understand why, we know God is good and that somehow in the midst of this, He
has
a plan for our son's life that must go beyond anything we can imagine. Though
it's hard and we wish it hadn't happened, we have committed it to our God,
for He is good."
Is the race of life wearing you down?
Try a moment of thanks.
Dr. David Jeremiah
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O. Addison Gethers
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