We just celebrated the fiesta of Dumaguete and the 64th charter anniversary of Dumaguete city. Silliman Church also had its Thanksgiving Sunday. Whether it be anniversaries or fiestas, it is a time of saying thanks, grateful for the blessings that God has given us.
In the Bible, we see a lot of feast days. There is the Feast of the Passover, Feast of the Unleavened Bread, Day of the First Fruits, Feast of Pentecost, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacle, and several others. On those days, people would come together to give thanks to God.
I would like to share with you some considerations on how we might enjoy and find ways to thank God.
First, for thanksgiving to take place, we must acknowledge that God is the One who created us and all that we have.
The writer of Genesis tells us, “God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good.” (vs. 31a) And because God is the Creator, we are to submit our lives to God’s purpose.
One of Frank Sinatra’s songs says, “I did it my way.” Some folks may not recognize it, but this is the theme song of their lives. They do things “their way.”
However, if our way is not God’s way, it often leads into heartbreak. God’s way leads into life and peace and joy. We may have to go through difficulties, but in the words of St. Paul to the Philippians, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13) What we need to do is offer to God our life, and let God lead the way no matter what the circumstance is, believing that the love of God is stronger than anything else.
When the Apostle Paul was in Thessalonica, the Jews were so angry with him that Paul had to be smuggled out of the city by his friends. Later when he wrote his letter to the Christians in the other cities, he was writing it in the midst of a dingy Roman prison and facing serious charges. But this was only one of a series of incidents that had occurred during his stormy ministry. He had been shipwrecked, beaten nearly to death, imprisoned, and even many of his fellow Christians were openly opposing him.
In spite of all these experiences, Paul can still write, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”(vs. 18) Paul knew that God was always there with him and for him.
A pastor shares this story: “One Sunday morning I had a rare opportunity to worship in another church as a participant in the pew. I received two messages that morning: one was delivered by the pastor; the other by a radiant young woman seated a few pews from me.
The woman’s love for Christ was evident all through the service. She followed the pastor’s sermon with obvious understanding and delight. Her countenance exuded the excitement of a person filled with Christ’s Spirit. As our closing hymn, we all stood to sing George Matheson’s hymn, ‘O Love that wilt Not Let Me Go,’ written by the great Scots preacher of another generation at a difficult period of his life. (He was going blind and his fiancée had told him she would not marry him because of his handicap.) The woman near me sang the hymn with magnificent enthusiasm. Then I noticed she was singing from memory. After a closer look, I realized that she was blind.
Here was a blind woman who saw so much of Christ with the eyes of her heart as she sang a hymn written by a blind Scottish poet-preacher about a love that endures in spite of life’s setbacks and difficulties.
As the worship ended, I talked to this young woman and thanked her for the impact of her radiance on my life. ‘Oh, thank you, sir,’ she said humbly. ‘I have prayed that His love would shine through me. Unlike you, I can’t see my own face in a mirror, but I can see Jesus with different eyes. I asked Him for some sign that He is getting to others through me. What you said is His answer. Thank you again!’’’
Saying “thank you” whatever the circumstance in life tells us of the character of a person. It is a statement of faith. It is a statement of grace. We find the inner joy that comes when we walk with Christ whatever the circumstances are.
According to William Barclay, “There is always something for which to give thanks; even on the darkest day, there are blessing to count. We must remember that if we face the sun, the shadows will fall behind us but if we turn our backs on the sun all the shadows will be in front.” (The Daily Study Bible Series in Thessalonians)
Second, to have a thankful heart is to acknowledge that God owns everything that we enjoy. We are not owners but trustees of what God has created. So we become managers and caretakers of all that there is: the earth, people, health, skills, time, and life itself.
In Genesis, God told Adam and Eve, “Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (1:28b)
Unfortunately, many see this admonition of Scripture to “have dominion” as justification to rape and exploit the land of its resources rather than to guard, preserve, and love it. We have seen the creation as the enemy to be tamed rather than the precious resource it is. Yes, we can use it, but we need to take care of it.
For Christians, it is basically a religious question to consider how to manage the resources, how we produce food, how mining is affecting the land, what we do with our waste products, and how we are harming the earth with pollution. Maybe the flooding, the landslides, the changing weather are reminders for us to take care of what God has entrusted to us.
Recently, the UN World Meteorological Organization tells us that the volume of greenhouse gases causing global warming has risen to a new high last year. And according to President Ben Malayang III, if the trend continues, years from now it is very probable that the sea level will rise. And if this happens, some parts of the Silliman campus will be underwater. It will not be Silliman beside the sea, but rather, Silliman under the sea.
Truit Gannon, pastor of a church in Georgia, tells of an incident in his boyhood. A man named Hugh, who worked for his father, owned a beautiful Harley Davidson motorcycle, the Cadillac for motorcycles. It was a wine-colored machine with the hydro-glide fork on the front wheel. As I understand it, that hydro-glide fork was an engineering miracle in motorcycling in its day. Anyway, Truit says it was his greatest thrill as a teenager to ride that motorcycle. One day he asked, “Hugh, can I ride your motorcycle again today?” Hugh’s words have stuck with him ever since. “You can ride it anytime you want to,” Hugh said, “anywhere you want to, and as often as you want to. Just remember to ride it like it was mine and not yours.”
Reflecting on that statement, Gannon says, “God has given us full and free use of this world. All God asks is that we use it like it was His and not ours.”
Finally, we are indebted to God. We need to cultivate and maintain a grateful heart that continues to pulsate with thanksgiving.
