THANX | 11- Remember

Because things like unity, justice, domestic tranquility, our common defense, and our general welfare are so important to us. And because the blessings of liberty are so important to us; like freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, freedom to assemble and protest, freedom of association, privacy and trial by jury- and the freedom to vote. Because these things are all so precious- we should thank God for our veterans, especially those who gave their last full measure of devotion to our liberties.

Thank You, Lord for those who sacrificed for our freedom, and security.

Paul told us in Philippians 4:6b "...but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." And so we praise Him for His ultimate sovereignty over the nations and thank Him for our veterans- but in the next breath, we bring our requests and petitions to Him.

Please pray for our enemies, just as President Lincoln called us to do, so that God's Spirit would work in their hearts to end hostility and even to become our friends.

Please pray for our current service men and women, that God would protect and defend them, and keep them safe and whole and bring them home soon.

Please pray for their families, to keep them well and whole and to provide for them, and to comfort them and ease their fears while their loved ones are overseas or in harm's way.

Please don't just thank God for our veterans, but pray for them and their families- that they may be provided for, that we would not forget them or take them for granted. Pray that they may be restored to families, communities, to society, to jobs, to healed if not whole body and especially to whole and sound minds and to grant them personal peace and rest from the trauma's they've been through.

And lest we forget that this "Veteran's Day" was first called "Armistice Day" by those veterans themselves- Please pray for peace.

THANX 10 | The basics

“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” ~Matthew 8:20

You can call this "Liberal Guilt" if you want to, but the last few days when I've listened to the news on the radio and there have been stories about Haiti still not recovered from January's devastating earth quake, now flooded after a hurricane (which thank God wasn't worse). Families living in refugee camps with no emergency shelters from the rain. Whole communities gathered under a sheet or a tarp. 

This has made me tremendously grateful for how fortunate I am to have a solid house, with a heater that works, and a soft, warm bed to crawl into at the end of the day (and some mornings wish I could stay in).

Yeah, as a matter of fact I do think that knowing how desperate the needs are of much of the world should give us pause. Hopefully it should affect us enough to want to do something about the inequity and injustice in the world, or to do with less, or to give if our time and treasure to charitable organizations. 

If nothing else, it should make us feel all the more grateful for even the smallest, most mundane blessings that we usually take for granted, or worse, selfishly feel entitled to.

Thank You, Lord, for a house to go home to, for food, clothing, and shelter, and a place to lay my head. Amen.

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PS- Happy 527th Birthday, Martin Luther! Nov. 10, 1483. Thank You, God for Dr. Luther and his courage to take a stand for the truth of Your Grace! Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 1:17

THANX | 09- Go Juice

Thank you, Lord, for coffee

THANX | 08- Thanks God for words

Parent: "Eat your supper"
Child: "But I HATE this, it's so YUCKY!"
Parent: "Eat. There are children starving in Africa (India, China, name the country or continent)

That's an age-old scene, isn't it? But rather than use it to talk about hunger, poverty, or nutrition I want to use it as a metaphor for literacy.

At our school, we set aside 15-20 minutes a day to Drop Everything And Read (DEAR). What a LUXURY! What a treat! A gift! A joy. Read ANYTHING. Have a chunk of day where you don't have to work on homework or take notes or run laps- just read.

Yet every day kids moan and complain. Do we HAVE to? It's so BOOOOORING! I HATE to read.

Think about the rest of the world for a minute. How few kids have access to school, let alone books? How few people on this planet even know how to read? And then consider how many people on this globe aren't ALLOWED to read, or have what they are permitted to read severely limited?

During medieval times almost no one in Europe could read, monks who worked as scribes, a few super rich royals, some of the earliest bankers and lawyers. Even many priests and monks couldn't read. Books were either so valuable as material possessions or thought of as so dangerous for their potential to inspire people to think for themselves- they were literally locked up.

Martin Luther advocated universal public education because you have to be able to read in order to be able to read the Bible and have a personal relationship with God. Yet how many of us who call ourselves Christian crack our Bibles open, blow off the dust, and bother to read them very often?

So thank God if you can read.

Frankly, I could've (and I suppose should've) made this a really short post because I was just thinking about how thankful I am for books. Mysteries, satires, and poetry. I love reading- and it goes without saying (from how long this post has become) I love writing.  Book stores, libraries, online book sharing clubs, Amazon, audio books, and now ebooks and blogs, magazines and websites. Letters! Emails! Texts & Twitters!

Thank you God for words, and as long as I'm at it, thank you for Your Word.

THANX | 07- If you can read this...

Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ~Isaiah 30:20-21

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

This past weekend in Charter Oak, where I live, we celebrated the retirement of a friend who has taught English and Speech/Drama for 30 years. 

She talked about how insignificant she felt her career is in the grand scheme of things. She compared it to dipping your hand in a bowl of water. While it's there, it displaces the water, but once you pull it out, no one knows it was there- the water returns to it's original level, as if it had never been displaced.

We felt differently. We feel like her example was more like a rock dropped in a pond. Waves ripple out and effect the whole pond. Many of her students went on to become teachers themselves, most became parents. She may have been just one teacher at a small school in a small town in the middle of the Midwest, but the way she taught and the values she exemplified both effect and affect generations.

Which teachers and coaches have made a difference in your life? Who do you find yourself emulating? Who's voice most often ends up being that voice in your head?

Thank God for them, for the planning and preparing and sweat and toil. Thank God for their example, their caring, their efforts.

Thank You, Lord for teachers.

THANX | 06- What are you listening to?

"I watch a lot of baseball on the radio." ~Gerald R. Ford

Yesterday I thanked God for blogging and the Web. One of the simple conveniences of the 20th & 20th Century that I absolutely love and believe it or not, thank God for all the time is radio. I can have music, sports, news, and conversation all day long pretty much for free.

I'm reminded of this the most during NPR fund drives. They do make me feel guilty and I suppose that one of these years I should really not just thank God, but also support my local NPR station financially.

But seriously. Every car comes with a radio. Most of us have radios in our kitchens and bathrooms. Here in the Midwest, they're indispensable for knowing about the weather- storm warnings, road conditions, school closings and game cancellations may now be available by text and email- but most of us still turn to local radio first.

So take a second and thank God for radio.

THANX | 05- This tangled Web

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” ~Isaiah 52:7

When I started this experiment, I intended to be brief, concise, and basically list things that I was thankful for- simple things- to show how much we have to be thankful for. But instead, I keep writing these long, in-depth devotions. Guess I should thank God for words, writing, my imagination... and for that matter, for Blogger (and by extension, their parent company Google). Thank God for blogs, the World Wide Web, for Tim Berners-Lee the engineer who helped make it possible, for the internet and visionaries like J.C.R. Licklider and Vinton Cerf who made it possible.

If I in anyway am able to bring you good news here, please don't look at my feet- I'm very self conscious about them. Consider the technology that affords me the opportunity to post it here like my shoes. I'm pretty fortunate to have such awesome shoes.

Thank You, Lord for all these tools and toys we have these days that allow us to all to be writers and publishers while saving paper.

Lighten Up; a Satori

This morning in my email, someone had sent me an e-card for a Happy Diwali. It was sent anonymously so I don't know who to thank, let alone whether they were sending it sincerely (knowing that I appreciate and am open to a lot of Eastern culture and philosophy) or if they were trying to be play with me (just another holiday) or trying to bait me somehow (cause I'm this big liberal). 

However it was intended, I decided to take it in the spirit of Diwali- a celebration of lights and the ultimate triumph of good over evil and compassion over selfishness. 

We're just about to get into a lot of festivals of lights here in the next 2 months, what with Jewish Hanukkah, African-American Kwanza, and of course Christianity's Advent season leading up to Christmas and then Epiphany (when we celebrate Jesus, our light coming into the world).

Diwali, also known as Deepavali is a five day festival in Fall when many Hindus, Sikhs, and some Buddhists light oil lamps, wear new clothes and enjoy sweets with their families for five days.

The spiritual aspect of Diwali is that participants attain and awareness of their "inner light," the eternal, unchanging true self, your "Atman" or soul, if you like. These Eastern traditions teach that true enlightenment leads to compassion, love and the awareness that we are all interdependent.

These three principles are pretty worthy aspirations. In fact, lets face it, Jesus taught, demonstrated and offers love (John 13:34-35), compassion (Luke 2), and communion (John 17, Acts 4:32)  too.

If there's a difference it's that in Christianity, we know that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 2:23. Let's face it, call me a pessimist, but every human being is by nature fallible, imperfect, selfish and short-sighted. As the psalmist put it, "Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who doesgood, not even one."~Psalm 53:3

There's a lot about the East that is admirable and that we Westerners need to learn from. But the biggest difference theologically is that they're looking for an "inner" light withing one's self, whereas Jesus tells us that He is our light.

“I am the light of theworld. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” ~John 8:12

The Apostle John  had to compete with Gnosticists and other competing teachings that claimed that humans are capable of transcending society and becoming godlike by looking inside (see my series on John's Epistles, "Johnny Poppin"). Our light comes from outside, not inside.

"The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp."~Revelations 21:23

By pointing this out, it does NOT give Christians an excuse to judge, discriminate or hate Hindus or Buddhists. "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness."~1 John 2:9

The thing is, we ourselves don't have our own light inside us, but we should have a light inside. We should REFLECT God's light. It's like God is the sun and we are all moons. If Jesus lives inside us, if He put His Holy Spirit into our hearts, than we can shine like stars (Philippians 2:15).

"For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." ~2 Corinthians 4-5

If I understand correctly, many Eastern religions suggest that if we fail to reach enlightenment, we will have many more attempts through reincarnation- eventually maybe attaining loss of self by being absorbed into the universe's goodness. Whereas we are offered reunion and fellowship with each other and with our Father as God's children. And we will never have to fear the darkness again.

"There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the lightof the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."~Revelations 22:5

So, blessed Diwali all my friends, Namaste!

May compassion, love, unity, and enlightenment be yours in Christ.

THANX | 04- Fresh starts

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" ~2 Corinthians 5:17

I for one am really grateful that no messy life gets, I can always start over. I think this is a freedom that God gives us that we too often take for granted.

The recovery movement has some great sayings like, "one day at a time," and "today is the first day of the rest of your life." The point of these platitudes is that, whatever mistakes you've made, you can always star over from right here right now and start over.

We often use New Year's for resolutions, hoping we'll get "get back on track," or "turn over a new leaf." And, imperfect human beings that we are, many's a year that we've broken our resolutions before January is over.

Many Christians try to use the Easter season the same way. We don't see Lent so much as an opportunity to try to empathize with Jesus' suffering or to recognize that it was our sin that sent Him to the cross- instead we try to use it as a motivator for our own self-improvement, to lose weight or to try to kick some habit.

God does want us to turn from our sin and follow Him. And there's sure nothing wrong with self improvement (so long as we keep in mind that no amount of improvement will add or take away any of His unconditional love for us or get us closer to Heaven- He took care of that on the cross). 

Still, when things obviously aren't going the way they should, we wish we could start over. Well, thank God, we can. Every moment of every day. But if it's still too hard to wrap our minds around starting over from right here, right now- there are always tons of mile markers or touch stones that we can use as launching pads and starting points.

Elections provide new starting points. New quarters and new semesters in school do too. So can new sports seasons. Completing a project. New months, new check books. Going from Summer to Fall or Fall to Winter. Daylight Saving's Time. 

Anytime is the perfect time to start again, start over, or start something completely new. Every morning is a new start. 

Feel like you've messed up with a relationship? Said or done something you wish you hadn't? Been dropping-the-ball on something that you think needs more attention? Want to make a fresh start of it? There's no time like the present.

I can't tell you how often I thank God for the fact that He doesn't hold my past against me, but lets me start from right here at trying to be who He intended me to be, to be a new creation. 

The future starts now- thank God!

THANX | 03- Good Morning

"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days."~Psalm 90:14

Seems like every morning these last few weeks I've been privileged to some of the most beautiful sunrises. It's like living in a painting. This isn't huge or profound, it may just be a trifle, but I enjoyed it and told God so.

Thank you Lord for my eyesight and for the glory of Your creation and for quiet moments when I can use my senses to take in nature's beauty. 

If you're like most people, and need to get to work by 8 or 9, there's probably sometime between 7 and when you enter through the door at your job when you can just take a few seconds to look around. Take a deep breath, smell the air, feel the morning on your skin. 

Sure, it would be great to have 20 minutes of exercise, or a half an hour to an hour of prayer and meditation, or just 15 minutes alone to clear your mind. All those are wonderful ideas, but let's face it- not many of us manage to squeeze these in. But all of us can take a moment, somewhere between 15 and 90 seconds to experience morning outdoors. 

I'm probably more blessed than many since I live in rural Iowa. I may see deer, pheasants, wild turkeys, migrating geese and constantly changing colors in the farm fields and trees on my morning commute. Yet I still get wrapped up in planning for the day ahead or reviewing the night before or listening to the car radio. Sometimes the only time I take to appreciate the morning is the moment between the parking lot and my classroom door. But what a moment.

In Summer, I feel the warmth and smell cut grass. In Fall there's a crisp, dry air and that smell of leaves or harvest. Obviously in winter it's the chill and the clean, snow-filtered air and bright light that bounces off of all things white. Spring may be the best, there's a moisture and either mud or new growth on trees and emerging flowers.

But of course, even if you're driving and just get a glimpse out your windshield, the best part of morning is the sunrise. Whether it's the orange on the horizon, gradually giving way to dusty blue of late October, or a narrow strip of violet or indigo leading in to a gradation of blues from deep to cyan in January, or the radiant pinks and magentas or golds that seem to saturate a ceiling of stratus clouds any time of year. There's just nothing like a sunrise.

Enjoy one soon and thank God for the morning, nature, and eyes and senses to experience it with. 

THANX | 02- Family & Affection

"Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him." ~Psalm 127:3

I'm on a break from coaching cheerleading between football and basketball seasons, that means that (at least until games start up again, I have a little more time for my own family during the week. Last night, that meant giving my wife a break from driving our oldest girl to Occupational Therapy in Sioux City. 

This meant that I got to spend from 4:30-8:30 with my daughter, driving up, shopping, waiting for her during OT, and supper. What a great chance to visit about school and friends and life in general.

Thank you, Lord for Grace. I enjoy spending time with her and I'm so proud of her. Thank you for the chance to be with her so much last night.

This morning, once I got all the lunches packed and breakfast served and medicine doled out, I actually had a few minutes before I needed to get on the road to work, so I sat down in an over-stuffed chair. Before long, the middle daughter crawled onto my lap and was telling me about her school day Monday. 

Competitive as they are, our youngest snuggled up too, so that suddenly I was blanked in daughters like a warm quilt. Granted, they both told me that I should dye my goatee- but what a blessing!

Thank you, Lord for my kids.

THANX | 01- Beginning an experiment, get back in touch

Some years I've tried to write devotions during Advent or Lent. This year, I'd like to try something different. I feel like I really want to nurture an attitude of gratitude. I also want to practice making my writing more brief and concise. So everyday of November, up until Thanksgiving- I will simply thank God for something I am grateful for. My challenge to you readers is to try to do the same.

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"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy" ~Philippians 1:3


Thank You Lord, for friends. I recently got back in touch with a former student whom I hadn't heard from in at least 2 years. It was good to find out that she's doing well.

Thank You Lord, for mentors and mentees. A couple of weeks ago a speaker at a conference encouraged us to make contact with someone who made a difference in our lives and let them know how much they meant to us. I wasn't sure how to reach a former pastor and some former professors, so I started with former students who had changed some of how I thought and taught. Eventually I managed to reach the people who had mentored me. It may have just been small notes, but it certainly reminded me of how much God has blessed me through other people.

Challenge- who has God put in your life who has mentored you, or whom you've had the opportunity to mentor. Thank God for using those people in your life and as long as you're thinking about it, make an effort to thank them too- maybe with a phone call or a letter, maybe just an email or a note on facebook. You'll make their day and help to foster an attitude of gratitude in others too.