Growth

Giving Thanks

Every year proclamations of “Happy Turkey Day” are met with rejoinders to remember the real meaning of thanksgiving. The celebration is supposed to be about being grateful, and not about football (Go Cowboys), big meals or shopping. Sometimes it seems that the expositions on the genuine reasons for the holiday are just as contrived as what they are rallying against. Their purpose is understandable but I fear that their redundancy sometimes results in them being tuned out. Does anyone really think that they are going to convince an adult to be grateful instead of glutinous by recounting the stories of Presidential Proclamations?

However, this season, I considered another meaning behind the admonition to “give thanks.” After all, we tend to think of it as another way of saying “be grateful”, but what if instead, we tried to be the reason that others gave thanks. In other words, instead of giving thanks for what we have, what if we, through our actions, bestowed thankfulness to others; if our actions reflected God’s goodness and caused others to express gratitude to Him? Would that also not be commensurate with the purpose of the celebration?

I think it is. And I hope that this holiday season I’ll find ways to give thanks.

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Growth

Starved for Truth

I have no idea what its like to go hungry. I’ve been hungry before, and I’ve participated in the thirty-hour famine, but I have no concept what its like not to know where your next meal is coming from or to be deprived of all nutrients. It is just not a part of my life experience and the helplessness that comes with that depravity is difficult to relate to. However, despite the difficulty in a physical sense, I have a better grasp of what it is like in a spiritual sense. If I was a medical student or had the inclination to spend more time on the subject, I would fill this page with a description of what the body does during a time of starvation. From the initial pangs of hunger, to the body’s ability to disregard the initial impulse and sustain itself, to the eventual turning on its own members, I think the parallels to the spiritual realm would be significant. We experience the need for spiritual food and if we don’t get it, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are o.k. without it. Eventually this self-deception causes us to do things that spite ourselves because our hunger has no other outlet. Regardless of the growing obesity numbers in America, there is still plenty of lack. There is a lack for spiritual nourishment and truth. Unfortunately many choose to remain in their state of need rather than accept the One who can satisfy.

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