The author of Psalm 136 commences and concludes his song with the words: “Oh give thanks… ,” He sounds like one who is sadly thoughtful. There is a tone of pleading in his summons. It is a yearning, wistful heart that is speaking. The psalmist is painfully aware of the disinclination of God’s people to give Him spontaneous thanks. Such disinclination is never to be taken lightly. Gratitude is not an option in the Christian life. It should be the keynote in the believer’s life. A thankful heart supplies the prime motive of Christian living. This has important implications for our prayer life. Where supplications abound, let gratitude much more abound!
I am writing these paragraphs on September 29, 1970. Within a three day period less than two weeks ago the following acts of violence were recorded in four cities in the United States:
Three students were shot, one fatally, in a gun fight at a high school.
Police fought a gun battle with militants barricaded in a house. The gun fight followed 12 hours of disorders injuring ten persons.
Four persons were shot, one fatally, at a grocery store where police had staked out on a tip that the store was to be fire-bombed.
A policeman was shot to death in his patrol car. A short time later snipers began firing from a nearby building.
Our president has reminded us that “America at its gest has stood steadfastly for the rule of law among the nations.” True! But we cannot promote the rule of law abroad unless we respect the rule of law at home. A nation that tolerates terror and violence within its own boundaries can hardly serve as an example or as an inspiration in putting an end to piracies or tensions outside its boundaries. What America needs more than a· bumper crop at harvest time is a spiritual revival that carries the by-product of renewed respect for human life and the elemental decencies on which a free society rests.
There are people whose happiness is so dependent upon material things that only in limes of prosperity can they give thanks. Such thanksgiving is pretty much horizontal. And the contentment with which it is associated can soon wear thin. “America,” says Billy Graham, “has the largest per capita boredom in the world.” Jolting words I should say!
From my study window I see the first autumn colors tinging the trees. A beautiful season of the year is approaching for us who live in this clime. Have you considered the sombre truth that annually lies beneath this beauty? The harvest is ending. The reaped grain cannot be rejoined to its plant in the field. The plucked fruit cannot be returned to its branch. Short months ago in these harvest fields there was a day of birth, of green growth, of ripeness beauty. That day is now gone. Gone forever! Harvest time is here. The time of the sickle, the reaper. The lime of gathering in and casting away. There is a judgment in harvest. The stalks tell it. The pumpkins proclaim it. The brown husks and barren pod declare it. Let us listen as we walk over November stubble or shuffle through the fallen leaves. There’s a message we had better heed. Harvest time is coming for us all! “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Thomas a Kempis said that he would rather feel compunction than know its definition. The trouble with many of us, I fear, is that we know its definition but we do not feel it. So many of us who live in comfort have little more than passing thoughts for those who live in squalor. We can pick up the newspaper and read that millions in Asia are living at the destitution level. We shudder at their plight, and then as we put the paper away we dismiss the thoughts of these undernourished millions. Our concerns can be so casual! Psychologists warn us that a conscience habitually inflamed over trifles can induce serious mental illness. However, the conscience more to be feared is the one that has become dormant. We are learning to take the monstrous evils of our time for granted. We allow continuous exposure to these horrible spectacles, via the news media, to work a strange and baneful insensitivity within us. We move only when we are pushed. The season of Thanksgiving Day is an appropriate time for us to pray:
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake.
Why are we not more grateful? Is it not because of our pride? Our nature is such that we don’t like to be responsible to others. We don’t like to credit others with participation in our achievements. We don’t like to acknowledge that there are creditors in our lives, that things have been given to us. We much prefer the feeling that we have achieved and that we are creditors to others. We are stubbornly averse to the thought that the world around us gives us more than we achieve for ourselves. This is the pride that loves to say u;e did it for ourselves, the pride that closes our eyes to what forebears and ancestors have produced. This is the pride that makes us stupidly blind to the overarching, undergirding God who is the “Fount of every blessing.” This is the arrogance that ultimately breeds the secular mind—the mind which says God does not matter.
“Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name, bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” There is self-exhortation here. The psalmist induces praise by addressing himself. It reminds us of the practice of priming a pump. We pour in a little water to get a flow of water. So we must pour the water of self-exhortation into our souls that streams of praise and thanksgiving will flow out. Pouring in the water of self-admonition, drawing out the praises, is an important and necessary spiritual exercise. On earth we must prime the pump. In heaven we shall be as artesian wells! No priming necessary!
Dan Crawford, author of the book, Thinking Block, spent most of his life living with the Negro in South Africa, so much so that it was said of him that “he even thought like a Negro.” What we call “civilization” was quite foreign to his life with the natives. One time, while planning a trip back to London, he sat in his hut with a Rantu, telling him of what he was going to sec again. He told him of huge ocean-going vessels that could carry hundreds of passengers. He told him of comforts and conveniences in the city dwellings, of walking into a dark house, pressing a button, and the room filling with light. He described a shiny faucet from which fresh water flowed. He talked about the cars that travel on streets without anyone pushing or pulling them. The Negro sat there showing no sense of surprise and when Dan Crawford stopped talking about all these modern wonders, the Bantu quietly asked, “Is that all?” “Yes” was Crawford’s reply. Then, very slowly and gravely, the old Bantu said, “Well, you know, to be better off is not to be better.” How true! And we are at once reminded of what Jesus said: “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
Leonard Greenway is pastor of the Riverside Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I am writing these paragraphs on September 29, 1970. Within a three day period less than two weeks ago the following acts of violence were recorded in four cities in the United States:
Three students were shot, one fatally, in a gun fight at a high school.
Police fought a gun battle with militants barricaded in a house. The gun fight followed 12 hours of disorders injuring ten persons.
Four persons were shot, one fatally, at a grocery store where police had staked out on a tip that the store was to be fire-bombed.
A policeman was shot to death in his patrol car. A short time later snipers began firing from a nearby building.
Our president has reminded us that “America at its gest has stood steadfastly for the rule of law among the nations.” True! But we cannot promote the rule of law abroad unless we respect the rule of law at home. A nation that tolerates terror and violence within its own boundaries can hardly serve as an example or as an inspiration in putting an end to piracies or tensions outside its boundaries. What America needs more than a· bumper crop at harvest time is a spiritual revival that carries the by-product of renewed respect for human life and the elemental decencies on which a free society rests.
There are people whose happiness is so dependent upon material things that only in limes of prosperity can they give thanks. Such thanksgiving is pretty much horizontal. And the contentment with which it is associated can soon wear thin. “America,” says Billy Graham, “has the largest per capita boredom in the world.” Jolting words I should say!
From my study window I see the first autumn colors tinging the trees. A beautiful season of the year is approaching for us who live in this clime. Have you considered the sombre truth that annually lies beneath this beauty? The harvest is ending. The reaped grain cannot be rejoined to its plant in the field. The plucked fruit cannot be returned to its branch. Short months ago in these harvest fields there was a day of birth, of green growth, of ripeness beauty. That day is now gone. Gone forever! Harvest time is here. The time of the sickle, the reaper. The lime of gathering in and casting away. There is a judgment in harvest. The stalks tell it. The pumpkins proclaim it. The brown husks and barren pod declare it. Let us listen as we walk over November stubble or shuffle through the fallen leaves. There’s a message we had better heed. Harvest time is coming for us all! “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Thomas a Kempis said that he would rather feel compunction than know its definition. The trouble with many of us, I fear, is that we know its definition but we do not feel it. So many of us who live in comfort have little more than passing thoughts for those who live in squalor. We can pick up the newspaper and read that millions in Asia are living at the destitution level. We shudder at their plight, and then as we put the paper away we dismiss the thoughts of these undernourished millions. Our concerns can be so casual! Psychologists warn us that a conscience habitually inflamed over trifles can induce serious mental illness. However, the conscience more to be feared is the one that has become dormant. We are learning to take the monstrous evils of our time for granted. We allow continuous exposure to these horrible spectacles, via the news media, to work a strange and baneful insensitivity within us. We move only when we are pushed. The season of Thanksgiving Day is an appropriate time for us to pray:
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake.
Why are we not more grateful? Is it not because of our pride? Our nature is such that we don’t like to be responsible to others. We don’t like to credit others with participation in our achievements. We don’t like to acknowledge that there are creditors in our lives, that things have been given to us. We much prefer the feeling that we have achieved and that we are creditors to others. We are stubbornly averse to the thought that the world around us gives us more than we achieve for ourselves. This is the pride that loves to say u;e did it for ourselves, the pride that closes our eyes to what forebears and ancestors have produced. This is the pride that makes us stupidly blind to the overarching, undergirding God who is the “Fount of every blessing.” This is the arrogance that ultimately breeds the secular mind—the mind which says God does not matter.
“Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name, bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” There is self-exhortation here. The psalmist induces praise by addressing himself. It reminds us of the practice of priming a pump. We pour in a little water to get a flow of water. So we must pour the water of self-exhortation into our souls that streams of praise and thanksgiving will flow out. Pouring in the water of self-admonition, drawing out the praises, is an important and necessary spiritual exercise. On earth we must prime the pump. In heaven we shall be as artesian wells! No priming necessary!
Dan Crawford, author of the book, Thinking Block, spent most of his life living with the Negro in South Africa, so much so that it was said of him that “he even thought like a Negro.” What we call “civilization” was quite foreign to his life with the natives. One time, while planning a trip back to London, he sat in his hut with a Rantu, telling him of what he was going to sec again. He told him of huge ocean-going vessels that could carry hundreds of passengers. He told him of comforts and conveniences in the city dwellings, of walking into a dark house, pressing a button, and the room filling with light. He described a shiny faucet from which fresh water flowed. He talked about the cars that travel on streets without anyone pushing or pulling them. The Negro sat there showing no sense of surprise and when Dan Crawford stopped talking about all these modern wonders, the Bantu quietly asked, “Is that all?” “Yes” was Crawford’s reply. Then, very slowly and gravely, the old Bantu said, “Well, you know, to be better off is not to be better.” How true! And we are at once reminded of what Jesus said: “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).
Leonard Greenway is pastor of the Riverside Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan.