For me and dozens of other students back in the day when Roy
McKinney was a professor at Atlanta Christian College, he served as a mentor, model,
mediator, and lots of other things that have caused us to remember him, despite
the fact that he died over twenty years ago!
One of his regular comments was something to the effect that
“Thanksgiving was the most missing virtue among believers these days.” He
really wasn’t talking about the holiday, of course, and I suspect his words are
as true now as they were then.
Paul’s little trilogy about life in Colossians 3:15-17 has
always caught my attention in terms of the importance of thanksgiving in a
believer’s life. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts . . . and be
thankful; let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . with gratitude;
whatever you do, whether in word or deed . . . giving thanks to God the Father
through Him.”
If the peace of Christ, and the word of Christ, and the whatever
you do of life are the “heads” side of the Thanksgiving Coin, what do you
suppose might be on the “tails” side?
If I give thanks for the peace of Christ that rules in my
heart, should I not be humbled by the reality of what my life would be without
the peace of Christ? And if I have
gratitude that my life is strengthened and transformed by the word of Christ
that dwells in me, should I not be humbled by the unpleasant reality of what I
would be without that transforming presence? And if whatever I do – word or
deed – can be done in the name of Christ with thanksgiving, should I not be
humbled by how different life would be if I weren’t able to serve in the name
of Jesus?
Somewhere in my heart it simply seems to me that when I flip
the Thanksgiving Coin, I should discover a lot of humbleness in the realization
that what I’m thankful for isn’t something I earned, deserved, or somehow
obtained on my own.
I have always been thankful for my parents and the family
into which I was born. Shouldn’t the flip side of that thanksgiving be the
realization of what my life might be, were it not for the family into which I
was born? Which might even lead to a better understanding of how hard it is for
some people to get the gospel into their lives because they weren’t born into a
family like mine?
Thanksgiving is such an American holiday, it seems
impossible that one would not be thankful for the United States of America as
our place of birth. Yet the flip side of that should again cause a little
humility to well up inside of us – realizing that hearing and obeying the
gospel for most Americans is far easier and far more likely to happen than is
true for lots of people in the world.
My wife and I are so thankful for our two children and our
son-in-law. And again, when the Thanksgiving Coin is flipped – I’m humbled at
all the opportunities we were able to give our children. Opportunities that so
many people in the world would not have even dreamed about, much less been able
to do.
I could go on, but maybe the point has been made. It might
be possible that sometimes our thanksgiving is offered with a bit of pride,
maybe even a little swagger. It isn’t too difficult to cross over the line and
be thankful for all I – the center of my universe – have accomplished.
Yet the brutal, but straight from God truth is that for
everything I put on my list as an item for which I’m thankful, there is the
flip side that reminds me of two crucial lessons – first, it is, when all is
said and done, a gift from God and I should be humble before Him; and second,
it should, at every juncture, cause me to be aware that not everyone in the
world has shared in my blessings.
Humble understanding. I wonder how much more of an impact we
could have on the world were we all marked by a little more humble understanding.
Happy Thanksgiving. And remember, there’s always a flip side
to the Thanksgiving Coin.
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