Thank You Lord

A number of years ago, while I was the preacher at First Christian Church in Tyrone, I went up to what was then called Georgia Baptist Hospital (now Atlanta Medical Center) to visit with and have prayer with a faithful member of our church who was dying much too early with that insidious thing we call cancer. She was a church choir member and several people from the choir and her family were there. She wanted to have a prayer circle before I left, so we all joined hands and went around the circle with short prayers for healing. She was the last one and started singing, “Thank you Lord saving my soul, thank you Lord for making me whole.” We all joined in with her.

A few days later she left this world and became more “whole” than we can fully appreciate in this world, but a wholeness for which our faith points us to at every turn. Yet our faith cannot be understood merely as hope for such a future, because, as Howard Marshall says so well about the book of Acts, Luke tells us of “a church primarily engaged in mission and facing human opposition.” (Theology of the New Testament, page 204)

To be clear – I am thankful for a faith that points me toward that day when the Lord shall reappear in glory and all of creation is renewed and restored to its God-intended purpose at creation. I find N.T. Wright’s word for what that might be like – transphysicality – to be more than merely intriguing. (Surprised by Hope, page 44, but also 148ff) But I really can’t take the New Testament seriously and think that “dying and going to heaven” as we say,  is all there is to being Christian.

My “wholeness” is already operating, though not yet all that it will one day be. I’m thankful for the simple vocabulary with which 1 John 3:2 expresses this: “Beloved, now children of God we are! Though not yet has what we shall be been made manifest. We know that when He appears, like Him we shall be – because we shall see Him just as He is.” My hope is rooted in the “not yet.” My faith is expressed in the “now.”

All of that to say, there is so much to be thankful for as Thanksgiving Day approaches on the cultural calendar of the world in which I live.

• ·         I’m thankful for the good sense to realize that the person I looked at in the mirror is not worthy to do the things he gets to do every day, but by the grace of God I do them.

• ·       I’m thankful for the gift of being born to good parents and siblings and extended family and that my parents, among other things, raised me in a world where faith in Christ was the norm, but an inquisitive mind was not looked upon as lacking in faith.

• ·         I’m thankful for the good sense to follow the idea that “smart boys marry up” and I did and that along with that, I gained another family of faith that has enriched my life.

• ·         I’m thankful that together Vicki and I have two wonderful children and a son-in-law. We both love all three dearly. The fact that the three of them love us makes life worth living in more ways that I can count.

• ·         I’m thankful that I’ve never felt compelled to allow any political idea or party – regardless of which persuasion – to create a paradigm in which I understand the Christian gospel. Somehow God has taught me that it actually is the other way around – the gospel creates the paradigm.

• ·         I’m thankful that I’ve never thought the gospel calls me to retreat and withdrawal, and that Jesus’ words in John 20 – “as the Father has sent me, so send I you” – were spoken over my life as well as the apostles in the room who first heard them.

• ·         I’m thankful for colleagues whose intellectual integrity and faith have blessed me for many, many years.

• ·         I’m thankful for students who allow me influence in their own journeys of faith like so many people for whom I’m still thankful did when I was their age.

• ·         I’m thankful for so many friends – many of them former students – who still think I have something to say.

• ·         I’m thankful for Grace: A Community of Faith and the fact that I get to be a part of their ministry to the world around us.

• ·         I’m thankful for Woodland Christian Camp and Retreat Center – a kingdom outpost that truly gets that God is “the creator of the world and everything in it” (Acts 17) and allows that to shape ministry.

• ·         I’m thankful that despite the frustration I experience with so much of “the world” around me – none of that is the reason for my hope and that allows my hope to remain strong.

• ·         I’m thankful that I was brought up on a farm and the idea of “playing in the dirt” still rings true in my heart and mind as an important part of what it means to be an authentic human.

• ·         I’m thankful for God’s wonderful creatures – though not quite human, some of them continue to remind me of the majesty of His creative genius every single day.

• ·         I’m thankful for books – so many incredible thinkers have helped shaped my thinking though I’ve never met them except in their books.

• ·         I’m thankful for Point University - how in the world did I deserve 40 years and counting of opportunity at such an important kingdom outpost?

To borrow words from Hebrews, “and what more shall I say? For time would fail me . . .” (11:32) 

A list like this – much too short to reflect reality – reminds me that “making me whole” is so much more than just whatever happens when the Lord reappears in glory. Not to discount that in any way, but to take Luke’s lead in Acts as a reminder that “engaged in mission and facing human opposition” is what the gospel calls us to do – already, until the Lord comes in glory, a not yet fulfilled promise. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Make a list. I promise it will do you good.