Chaplain's Corner

Here we go again – a long weekend, family gatherings, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie – that’s pretty well the first thing folks think of when Thanksgiving approaches. Isn’t it interesting, we think of time off, family and food but many don’t consider the provider of these blessings. Probably because most of us no longer actively consider God the giver of all good gifts. Even a lot of Christian folks go for long periods of time without acknowledging that everything we have, everything we treasure, everything of any value is a gift that God has given us and has he has the right to take it away.

Our lives, most of our lives, are so comfortable, so relatively trouble free, that the slightest bump in the road throws us for a loop. Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t lack compassion for myself and others even when little bumps rattle us, but when I think , even of a few folks that I engage with every week, I feel absolutely ashamed of any complaining I do.

Thanksgiving is a time to actually stop and recognize that we can’t pat ourselves on the back for our well-being, for others with as many gifts and opportunities as ourselves have been overtaken by disaster and it’s not because we are any better than they are. When I think back over this year I have to ask the questions: Why wasn’t it me that was diagnosed with colon cancer? Why wasn’t it one of my grandchildren that was killed in an accident? Why wasn’t it my wife that had a bad car accident? Why was my year so free of difficulty? Can I take any credit for that? Why do I have a good job? Why hasn’t it been me that had car trouble and had to spend too much to keep my car on the road?

I know even many Christians will struggle with this next statement, but it was uttered perhaps five thousand years ago by a man named Job after his blessed life disintegrated before his eyes in a matter of days. As he stood back and looked at the wreckage of his once wonderful life he said to his wife who in bitterness told him to curse God and die, “You are talking foolishly. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”

“Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” This messes up most of our theology. Despite the doctrinal statements of our church affiliations, most of us embrace a “blessings come to good folks and trouble comes to bad folks” theology. It just seems to make sense to us if we don’t think about it; but the moment we think about it, this idea is absurd. We all know a lot of bad folks that seem to be getting on quite nicely and a lot of good folks that seem to be afflicted by trouble over and over again.

I know it may make our minds cringe, but the Bible illustrates and teaches that God is the Master of everything, that nothing happens without his OK and that He gives his OK not as a capricious, “just because I can” deity, but because in his grand and blessed scheme of things, each blessing and each trouble are designed to lead us closer to his purpose for our lives.

I know many of us even resist the “his purpose” but face it, as the eternally existing, all powerful, creator and sovereign of all that exists – it makes perfect sense that everything in the universe is worked into his ultimate purpose. Thanksgiving is a time when we can recognize this truth and yield to it in faith. The only question is, “Will we?”