Healing Rays of Righteousness

Read Psalm 16:5-11

Thanksgiving Day is traditionally a time of celebrating harvest, to admire our work and to be grateful for what we have.  It is the time of year when we think of family and friends more intentionally.  It is a time of remembering our connections with those who died, and celebrating our connections with those yet living.  It is a time to reflect from where we have come and how God’s gift of presence and grace surrounds and blesses our lives.

This “God gift” of presence and grace, often looms larger in retrospect than what is seen in the present moment.  To reminisce, reflect and realize that all of our life has been and is being blessed by God’s gracious presence and love for us, I believe, will soon have us echoing the psalmist’s joyous praise, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”  This reflective thought will also reaffirm and strengthen our hope and encourage us to move into the future with full confidence in God’s goodness toward us.

This does not mean that all the places of our heritage were pleasant.  Nor does it discount or diminish the difficult struggles in our life’s “cup” of relationships and circumstances.  But the deep sense of contentment expressed in verse 6, flows from the sense of security expressed in verse 8, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord.  With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”

A wise man once said that when it comes to Thanksgiving Day activities, most people fall into either of two classes, those who take things for granted and those who take things with gratitude.

For an example, whenever we sit down to eat, we have two options about the way we partake of what is put before us; and the choice we make from these two options says a lot about our attitude toward life in general.  We can approach the meal with a negative spirit, wishing we were at a different table, critical of the way the food is cooked, unhappy about what we are being served.  Or we can sit down with gratitude and appreciation that a meal has been provided for us, and thoroughly enjoy what we have been given.

We have the same two options when we sit down at the table of life with its many unpleasant situations and relationships.  We humans are never free to determine what will be set before us, but we are free to choose how we will experience it.  We can choose to either receive these difficult and unsavory things with resentment and bitterness, or we can accept them with gratefulness and confident hope, knowing that the Lord is at my right hand.

The psalmist expressed contentment and confidence and chose to say, “Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.”  Being fully satisfied with the Lord and the total security that God’s faithful care provides, even in death, the psalmist testifies, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (v.11).  In Psalm 23, verse 5, the psalmist further testifies, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

It is very interesting to discover that whenever the Gospel writers depict Jesus as eating a meal, they describe him as doing what he would later do at the Last Supper: (He) took bread, and gave thanks……he took the cup, and gave thanks.

This was more than just an ancient Jewish ritual.  I think of it as a picture of the way Jesus sat down to the banquet table of life.  It was how he related to all of what God was setting before him.  Jesus was not resentful of the fare that was placed before him.  He did not mistrust the intentions of his Father.  Rather, a grateful acceptance undergirded his whole life, and this thankful spirit opened the fountain of joy and peace that so beautifully characterized him.

What, in your life, are the pleasant places of goodly heritage in terms of family, church, community and Godly faith that you can declare and celebrate in your life?

I invite you to give some extended thought to reminiscing, reflecting, realizing God’s goodness in your life, and then joyously celebrate with thanksgiving.

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – November 14, 2018