Ladies, let’s pretend for a minute…
A delivery person from a florist arrives at your door to bring you five dozen beautiful roses. (Is your imagination stretching almost beyond its limits already? Yea, me too.) All you can do is stand there speechless, sniffing the gorgeous roses and wondering, “Who in the world sent these? Did some aliens take over my husband’s body?”
Or, “What did he do that was SO bad that he sent these to make up for it?”
Or maybe even, “How did the florist get the wrong address?”
Alas, there is no card and the delivery person doesn’t have a clue who ordered the roses. The flowers are stupendous, but the joy is somewhat tainted because you don’t know who they are from, why they were sent, or if they are even actually intended for you.
Okay, guys, now it’s your turn to make believe …
Let’s say you get a call from a reputable law firm informing you that you have inherited one million dollars. After you’ve regained consciousness, you begin to dream of all you’ll do with these unexpected funds — investments, a new car, a college fund for the kids, a bass boat, lots of power tools, a new big-screen T.V. – whoa, this is FUN!
Later on, after your mental shopping list is complete, it hits you: “Hey — they didn’t tell me who left me all of this money. I don’t have any rich relatives or friends. Haven’t even been to any funerals lately. Who in the world thought this much of me?”
Receiving the money is beyond wonderful, but because you don’t know who left you the money or why, it’s almost impossible to fully enjoy it. You have this nagging fear that someday, someone is going to figure out this was a big mistake and come to haul off your big screen T.V., drive away your new car, confiscate your bass boat, unplug your power tools and demand the money back.
You see, the joy of our blessings is multiplied when we know where they come from … and it’s diminished when we don’t. And while we do indeed live in a selfish culture, I still believe we have a need to thank someone for the good things in our lives.
Bible teacher, author and speaker Steve Brown described how God used this very truth in the life of an atheist friend: “I have a friend who became a Christian because he was so thankful about his newborn son and had nobody to thank. He had been an atheist and I had used every argument that I knew. I know a lot and am quite good at debate, but nothing fazed him until his son was born. He was deliriously happy and thankful. I asked him, ‘Sam, who are you going to thank?’ That’s when he became a Christian.”
So, I ask you this Thanksgiving, as you ponder the blessings of your life (and no matter how tough our paths may get, we all have blessings to ponder), do you know who to thank?
The Bible provides an answer in James 1:17: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
The perfect, gracious, merciful, generous, wise hand of God provides every good thing we enjoy in life. The joy of the gifts is wonderful; the joy of knowing the Giver is even better.