Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. This past Sunday we had a special service of thanksgiving to God. Why to God? Because all that we have is given to us BY God, not by our own powers or abilities. All of life; from the smallest thing to the biggest is GIVEN to us by God. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 118: “This is all the Lord’s doing ... Let us be glad and rejoice in all the blessings we have received from God, who’s steadfast love endures forever.”
On Sunday I used this illustration. Sorry to repeat it for those who were in church, but I do it for two reasons: One, it tells a great truth, and secondly, I ask that you read this story as a short devotional this Thanksgiving when you all sit down to eat:
Charles Swindoll describes a visit to a veteran’s hospital. The day he arrived he saw this touching scene. There was a man in this hospital who had a young son. During his long confinement in the hospital, the man had made a wooden truck for his boy. Since the boy was not allowed to go into the infectious ward and visit his father, an orderly had brought the gift down to the child, who was waiting in front of the hospital with his mother.
The father was looking out of out the fifth-floor window, watching his son unwrap the present. – The little boy opened the package, and his eyes got wide when he saw that wonderful little truck. He hugged it to his chest.
Meanwhile, the father was walking back and forth waving his arms behind the windowpane, trying to get his son’s attention. The little boy put the truck down and reached up and hugged the orderly and thanked him for the truck. And all the while the poor father was banging on the window trying to get his son’s attention. Swindoll said he could almost read the father’s lips: It’s me, son. I made the truck for you. I gave that too you. Look up here!”
Finally, the mother and the orderly turned the boy’s attention up to that fifth-floor window. It was then the boy cried, “Daddy! Oh, thank you! I miss you, Daddy1 Come home soon, Daddy. Thank you for my truck.”
And the father stood in the window with tears pouring down his cheeks.
Think about how often we get a wonderful gift and blessing from the Lord, yet we don’t look up and give thanks to the one who made the blessing come about?
This Thanksgiving, lift up your eyes and thank the Lord! You will see tears of joy falling from our Father’s eyes.
~ Have a holy and blessed Thanksgiving, Dan