Thankful

God has not promised riches but I am thankful for all that He has enriched me with including my family, my friends, and the privilege of serving as a chaplain to some of the finest people I've ever known.

God has not promised health and vitality but I am thankful that for being 45 years old and slightly broken from an old injury that I am in good health and able to do what I need to do.

God has not promised justice nor liberty but I am thankful that I am a citizen of a nation that holds liberty as its greatest virtue.

God has not promised the faithful of His church will have it easy in this world but I am thankful that I can gather with my brothers and sisters in Christ and worship in freedom and teach my daughters the great wonders of the grace of God.

What God has promised is to be with us. And so as we draw from Thanksgiving into advent, the time of expectant waiting, and into the celebration of Christmas I am most thankful for Emmanuel -- God with us -- for in the infant child of Jesus, God became flesh and opened salvation for all who would receive Him.

And I am thankful for the service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London this past Thanksgiving that reminded me of what God has promised and to be thankful for the bounty when it comes but to be more thankful for the presence of God for bounty if all too often temporary and trouble may arrive on the morrow.

Encouraged

President Abraham Lincoln was a great man. A visionary. A leader. A humble servant of our nation. It is most encouraging to know he was also a great man of faith in God. In an age when I often here from some that the Christian faith is about "fairy tales" it is worth remembering that the Christian faith was at the core of this great man. His faith defined and shaped how he viewed himself and how he viewed his fellow human beings. His faith in God gave him strength to endure through the great struggle that was the Civil War. As we draw near to Thanksgiving it is fitting to remember his proclamation of thanksgiving and not be blind to the role his faith played in his life and through him in the life of our nation:

By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Wishing

There have been some beautiful days here in England. The locals have told me that the weather has been more temperate than it normally would be for this time of year. It is 0530 and in an hour I'll be forming up for unit PT. I wish this morning was a beautiful day.

But it isn't. It is cold -- 43 degrees...and rainy. And windy, blustery actually. So, PT this morning probably won't be much fun.

I wish it were different. But wishing doesn't make it so.

It is amazing though how often we live as though wishing did make it so. I am a called and ordained Christian minister (of the Lutheran confession). I say that upfront because I believe in integrity. I believe folks have a right to know where someone is coming from. So getting back to my point about wishing something were so doesn't make it so.

Now sometimes having a dream is good. When I was 24 and weighed 320 I dreamed about not weighing 320 -- and that helped motivate me to do something about it.

But there are some things I know that can't change. Sometimes I think it would have been cool to live in a different place and time and I daydream about this or maybe write about it (yes, I am one of many who are working on a book). But that doesn't make it so. I live here in 2010.

There have been times I wished my bank account had something else to say. But wishing didn't make it so.

There were times I wish I had a day off, but again truth is truth.

Sometimes I have read things in the Scripture and thought boy I wish that were different. If I were God I might have done things differently. But in spite of our wishes (and often our actions and presumptions) we are not God nor gods. God is our creator. And the Bible says what it says. And I believe that the Bible says what God has to say to us. And I believe he means what He says.

Yes, sometimes I don't fully understand. I was having a discussion with a fellow minister last night about a particular item on which the church is divided. If left up to me I would side with that individual. But it isn't left up to me. Wishing something were different doesn't make it so. There are times when dealing with God and reality that you have to accept what is given and trust. God is our Creator. I figure since He made us He knows something about how we are designed to fit together.

But the world is fallen and things aren't goign as designed. Sickness was not part of the original design. I have family who are fighting cancer. As I get older there are days I feel mortality in my bones. I've lost friends. I've seen first hand the damage that sin does to the lives of people from those who were sexually assaulted or fallen victim to substance abuse, and it goes on and on. Not part of the original design. Flawed. Fallen. Sinful. I remember talking to one alcoholic who has what is probably an inherited (as it runs in his family) predisposition to an overwhelming desire for alcohol who wavered between feeling worthless one minute to blaming God for creating him that way. Neither is true. The truth is that sin has effected us all - to some it has a much bigger impact and to some lesser -- but it effects us all (and it is fatal as we all die). Not part of the original design but true. Wishing it were different doesn't make it different. Pretending sin isn't sin doesn't make it not sin. Blaming God for creating us this way and using that as an excuse to live it out rather than recognizing it for what it is doesn't change it.

Truth is truth. God's Word says truth and I believe God knows what He is talking about.

But there is reason to dream and to hope. Because that same Word offers hope in the gift of Jesus and the promise of everlasting life. Yes it is faith. Yes it is hope. Yes is a dream I hope and believe will come true. Dreams can come true -- I did loose 160 pounds. Things can change. Miracles do happen. But in the case of everlasting life it is not just an empty hope that runs against all evidence - it is a hope that clings to God's Word. God's Word speak truth and I believe God knows what He is talking about.

So in the fall of life -- with winter ahead -- I believe spring is around the corner. So what are a few colder dreary days. The truth of "now" cannot overcome the promise of spring.