What Is There to be Thankful For?

Note:  The following is a piece I wrote several years ago that I believe is still applicable.  Happy Thanksgiving.-  RW

            It is almost Thanksgiving and there is probably someone each of us knows who is wondering what there is to be thankful for because sickness, grief and loss, or other challenges have come near. Many people are struggling to make ends meet.              Thanksgiving originated in such times.  In 1621, the Pilgrims came together  for a three day Thanksgiving festival in their new homeland of Massachusetts.   The winter before had been very difficult for them, and almost half of their group had died.  Yet, they came together with their Indian friends to offer thanks to God.  President Abraham Lincoln was the president that signed the order in 1863 designating the fourth Thursday in November to be a day of  thanksgiving.  He signed the order as North fought South during the civil war a short time after having visited the Gettysburg battlefield and given the Gettysburg address.

 

            The thing that the pilgrims and Lincoln have in common is not just  that they are Americans but they were able to see even in troubling times the blessing and bounty that God  gives that calls forth from us a spirit of thanksgiving and praise.  During these troubling and challenging times, may gratitude and thanksgiving for what God has given rise up also from us. 

 PRAYER

            O God,  it is right that we should always and everywhere give you thanks and praise.  Thank you for the bounty you give to all;   through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Where is Your Heart?

            As Thanksgiving Day approaches, many folks will be  in transit to a place they will spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.  I suppose the most unusual place that I have spent Thanksgiving was in a hut in Africa.   Let me tell you more.  Back in the early 2000’s, our oldest daughter, Heather, was a Peace Corp volunteer in the African country of Zambia.  In 2005, I spent some days in Zambia at Thanksgiving  visiting her.   On that Thanksgiving Day, I spent my time literally going white-water rafting down the Zambezi River starting just below Victoria Falls (the largest waterfall in the world). 

            As we we were travelling by bus north from Victoria Falls back toward Lusaka (the capital of Zambia), I saw a sign by the road that said “Livingstone Memorial”.    The sign was pointing travelers to a memorial site for  the Scottish missionary, David Livingstone.  While I had heard of Livingstone, I did not realize that his missionary travels had taken him to Zambia.   Since we are travelling public transportation, we were not able to stop to visit the site but when I arrived back in the United States I learned more about David Livingstone and the site.   It seems that when David Livingstone died, he gave instructions that his heart was to be cut out of his body and buried in what is now known as Zambia.   His body, however, was transported to the coast of Africa and shipped back to London where it laid in repose before his funeral rites and burial in Westminister Abbey.   When you visit the site there in Zambia known as the Livingstone Memorial, you will find there a Mvula tree at the site where he actually died and where his heart is buried.  

            Where is your heart?   The easy answer is to say that your heart is located in the chest area of your body.   The harder answer is to consider what person, place, or thing that you really feel passionate about.     Jesus was not a cardiologist or a medical doctor, but he certainly knew something about people and about God.   He had a really good answer for my question and it is this:   “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”   (see Matthew 6:21).      What do your actions say about what  person, place, or thing that you really and truly feel passionate about in this Thanksgiving season?     Have a joy-filled week and a blessed Thanksgiving.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:   God, I give you thanks for all the blessings this day, this season, and this life offers me.  Grant that my life might truly show what is important to me and may it be the One from whom all blessings flow;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen. 

Its the Same Old, Same Old and I am Glad

            Many  years ago (in 1993), Bill Murray and Andie McDowell starred in a movie titled “Groundhog Day”  that tells about a weather man who is caught up in a “time warp” where he keeps living the same day over and over again.   Can you imagine every day being the “same old, same old”.       Many of us don’t like “re-runs”.   We look forward to a new television season so we can see new shows. 

  

            While we might not like seeing things or encountering things that are the same old, same old, we encounter the same in a reading  Psalm 136.    Read again these first three verses of Psalm 136 which say:

 ¹ Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
            His love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods.
            His love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
            His love endures forever.

             In all of the 26 verses of this Psalm, we find the same old, same old words:  “His love endures forever.”  We read them and hear them over and over again.    While I might not like to see television shows over and over again, I am glad that I can discover anew each and every day the love of God that endures forever.  Thanks be to God.  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer-   We are grateful, O God, that every day and time after time we know your love that endures forever.   Forgive us for the times we are blind to that truth.  Help us trust more fully in your matchless love and grace;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen. 

What You Don't Know About Me

            Some of you reading this know me well and others not so well.   Some of you have known me for years, and others only in recent years.  No matter how long our relationship, I suspect  that there are some things you don’t know about me.  For example, some of you probably do not know that I am left-handed or that at one time I was the youngest United Methodist pastor appointed to a church in North Carolina (20 years old).    Others of you probably do not know that I am a long time New York Yankees fan or that I was the first member of my family to graduate from college. 

There is something else that few of you don’t know about me and it is this:  I still get nervous before I preach every Sunday.   Even though I have been a pastor now for over 45 years, I still get nervous.    The reason is not that I am by nature shy or bashful, or because I am not used to speaking before a crowd.   After 45 years speaking before crowds of a few people or a few hundred people, that does not bother me.   There is one reason I get nervous each Sunday and it is this:   I realize that when I stand in that pulpit I am speaking not for Randy Wall, but for God.   What an awesome, grave responsibility to stand before a few people or many people and have the audacity to say “thus saith the Lord.”

In II Corinthians 5:20, we find a passage of scripture that says:

²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

An ambassador is a person who represents someone else in a country different than their own whether you are talking about an ambassador of the United States or an ambassador of Christ.    When I step into the pulpit, I am reminded every Sunday that I stand there to speak a message greater than my words.   I am there to share a message from the one who is the “King of Kings, Lord and Lords.”.

You may not stand in a pulpit every Sunday, but if you are a follower and disciple of Christ Jesus, you also are “Christ’s ambassadors”.   In word and deed, you represent the Lord.   Be mindful of that, my friends.   And if that makes you a little nervous also, that is okay.   Have a joy-filled week.-    Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:   God,  thank you for the amazing fact that you choose to use a frail human like me to be your instrument.   Transform me, O God, to be a faithful herald of the good tidings of Christ Jesus;  through Christ our Lord.   Amen.