Out Our Way: Giving thanks - 1Chronicles 16:8-36

Out our way, some of the best places are the hardest to find and the most difficult to get to. I have often pitied the folk driving along the lonesome Highway 2 so intent on going somewhere else they don't see what lies all around them. A quick glance at open prairie and a few small towns and they dismiss it all saying, "There's nothing here."

They've never seen the moon rise over the Sweetgrass - or the incredible rock formations that lie between distant hills. They haven't stood on the sacred grounds of old battlefields like where Chief Joseph made his last stand. They don't understand the significance of the ancient buffalo jump where so many people camped and gathered and left signs of their passing. They just are so busy looking ahead to where they plan to go that they take no notice of where they are. And they miss so much.

I expect we all do the same thing in life. We are so busy thinking about the future we seldom take time to consider the present - and we zoom through life without ever taking the time to actually live. How many of us discover that we were so busy wanting to be adults that we missed our childhood? How many of us spent so much of life climbing the ladder we call "success" that we never took the time to enjoy each rung? Maybe that is why every culture has a "time out" of sorts to reflect, slow down, and live. For many of us that special time is called "Thanksgiving."

It is for most folks a time of family, gathering everyone together and hopefully cherishing the connection. But even we who have lost family can still cherish the time and give thanks for what we do have. I no longer have a wife, but I still have sons. I am no longer a pastor, but I am still a disciple. I can no longer ride the Tiger Ridge on Doc and work cows with Charlie, but I can hike in the mountains with friends. I can focus on what used to be, or focus on what may lie ahead, or I can stop and give thanks for today and what is right here. 

Isn't that what giving thanks is all about? Taking the time to focus on the moment by slowing down and taking stock? The holiday is a big event for most folks as it should be - but every day should have a time for thanksgiving, for seeing the grandeur God has given us all if only we have the sense to take the time to notice.

There is another side to regularly giving thanks - and that is the fact that it helps us get past the bad stuff as well. No one comes through life without scars. Just as Charlie taught me about cowboying: it's not a question of if you get tossed and maybe hurt, but when. And then it is a matter of whether you have the guts to "cowboy up" and get back in the saddle. Taking the time to remember by giving thanks for all the good times and good rides helps you find the courage to get back up and ride on.

In the Thanksgiving song of King David, giving thanks helped to put things in perspective and recall Who is in charge. Though Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Aaron and Miriam could not understand the reasons why God allowed some of the dark times, David reminds us that even when God seemed most distant, He was actually still there. David calls Israel to look back with the perspective of hindsight and give thanks for the fact that God did not abandon our ancestors and therefore, even in our own dark times, we can trust He has not abandoned us.  

Folks who speed along the Hi-Line and see nothing simply haven't bothered to look. As the old saying goes, "There are none so blind as they who will not see." Thanksgiving is an exercise in opening our eyes and looking around. Give thanks every day and not just on "Turkey Day."

Be blessed!

Brother John Bruington