Neither were they thankful….

(note: to the unbeliever, believer, atheist, or whosoever will)

Leading up to the quintessential American holiday, it gives us pause and cause to recollect the many ways, and thousands of times, Thanksgiving can be rendered. Unfortunately, far too many of us only thank themselves. Ouch.

I speak specifically from the platform of life’s opportunities daily, no, minute by minute, in rendering thanks for all the offerings of life. Someone left the power on so you would have light, heat, coffee. Thanks. Someone worked the service station so you could have fuel, air for the tires, and coffee. Thanks.

Closer to home though, we could always gives thanks for the ability to see, feel, touch, perceive, think, and most of all create. We are but little creators, and this fact escapes even the most stubborn of hearts. We choose to create peace, art, war, environments that welcome or dismiss God; we choose to create a life devoid of thanks, or full of thanks.

‘Thanks’ assumes a response. You sneeze, ‘God bless you’ is a common response, and ‘thank you’ is the next obvious response, regardless of whether one believes in God or not. It is a well wish, that’s all, and only the most proud or self made indoctrinated fool would say: ‘I don’t need your thanks, as God is but an imaginary figure.’

‘So neither were they thankful.’ I love how the sovereignty of God can be seen in a simple sneeze, innocuous as it seems, yet in these unbridled moments of life, the unexpected idiotic and unrehearsed hearts of men are revealed.  ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.’  Saying nothing would be a far cry better than saying something so mindless and insulting as ‘I don’t need your God to bless me.’

I look up at the night sky and see order, beauty, reliability, awe, magnificence, and I say ‘thanks.’ The impressions of the images are a reminder that for thousands of years, I have pitched my tent with they who have also looked up, such as Abraham and his offspring, and see the same innumerable company of the star studded canopy as they, and have also agreed that God’s word and promises are good. Thank you.

Life requires, no, demands thankfulness, and if there be no God to ultimately thank, then mankind is the most miserable of creatures, for we have had dominion over every living thing, and have pillaged the earth and seas, for what?

I think of the silverback ape here, and if he could talk he may say: ‘No thank you, I am nothing like you.’ He would be correct, and we would be liars to say he was mistaken, thank God.

‘Neither were they thankful, but were vain in their imaginations.’ Ha, how true is this! From that intended tower that would reach heaven, (and where God said no!) to the modern day PhD’s who write ‘peer reviewed papers’ to dismiss the Creator from His own creation, and do so with such bravado, they were/are both vain and stupidly imaginative.

Takes quite the imagination to ignore why eagles do not build nests underwater, and why whales cannot juggle grapefruits, but in this, I am thankful for understanding the nature and purposes of God Almighty. He simply made the ‘kinds,’ thank you very much.

Even a child with poor manners will invariably let out a ‘thank you’ for the cookie given by mom. So what is our excuse as adults, when we refuse to give thanks for life and all things? It’s simple. Our rock heads and stubborn hearts have stolen our common sense to the degree that we cannot see that ‘thanks’ demands reciprocation.

Even the Lord Himself took pause of a certain group who found His favour by having a malady removed, yet only one returned to give thanks to God. Truly an observation worthy of noting. Are you of the nine who said “eh, no big deal,’ or ‘Thank you sir?’

‘Neither were they thankful’ is but a sign of the times, and we are embarrassingly reminded: an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.’ Tis a sad day on earth when there is not a man to give thanks. And yes, to the women who are cut out of a greater cloth, you have no hard feeling when I assert that you are included in the ‘mankind.’  Thank you that you understand, and you are mature as to life.

So in this traditional Thanksgiving week, may we think of new ways to render thanks, not only for a country of freedom and the privilege to hold the pages of scripture, but to appreciate the thousands of things we take for granted.

Life summons a response to the Creator. So what’s it gonna be, thanks, or no thanks?