Today I invite you to think of something that you can’t remember doing without: it can be as basic as breath or your dog’s simple devotion and affection, your health. It can be the simple fact that you’ve always had clean clothes in your drawers or a hot meal on the table. Think of something you’ve never given a lot of thanks for because it has silently endured throughout your life, never calling attention to itself and never failing to make your life better. Take a moment: give thanks to God for this something-that-has-always-been.
Philippians 4:19 is a great reminder for all of us today: “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
Now take a look at the opposite – thanking God for things that have never been. This type of gratitude is possibly even more difficult than the previous kind because it involves stepping into other people’s shoes in order to appreciate your gifts and blessings. When we stand in someone else’s shoes, we can gain the capacity for perspective. Sometimes, it’s difficult to see things when you’re up close to them and seeing them through the same lens you always do. In order to give thanks for something you’ve never had, you might need to view your life from that other perspective. Perhaps you’ll give thanks because diseases that have affected people all over the world for hundreds of years won’t affect you because you were inoculated as a baby.
Maybe you’ll give thanks this season because you cannot remember a time when your stomach was so empty for so long that you forgot how to be hungry with no relief in sight . Perhaps you’ll give thanks because every time you slept outside in your life, you did so because you chose to – and maybe you had s’mores as the campfire died down. For the next few moments, I invite you to think of something you’ve never experienced, something you don’t want to experience because it is unhealthy or degrading, dangerous or worse and out of your control. Can you and I thank God that this thing has never happened to you?
But don’t stop there. Recognize that the thing-that-has-never-been always is happening somewhere in the world – maybe next door, or a few blocks away, or across an ocean. How can you help make that thing change from an always is to a never again?
Philippians 4:19-20 tells me: And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Be reminded that God loves you and has a marvelous plan for your life. My goal is to live in the center of God’s will and be thankful. I invite you to join me!
Ancil Abney
Interim Lead Pastor
Hillside Church of God