Thanksgiving Day Upon Mars Hill...

I was thinking this morning how quickly Thanksgiving Day has seemed to come this year.  I then began to think of all the things that I'm so thankful for.  I'm so utterly thankful for my family.  I thank God for my family.  This led my thinking to wonder what non-believers are thankful for, and how at Thanksgiving, despite ones religious or non-religious affirmations, they too will be thankful for much of the same things -- family.

Being thankful has caused me to question and wonder what it really actually means to be "thankful". The definition of thanksgiving is simply to give thanks.  To be thankful there must be one to which our gratitude is given, otherwise you don't have thanksgiving.  Pretty simple, basic and logical.  Thankful believers and non-believers alike will give thanks on this holiday.  For believers in Christ our thanks will be given to the Giver of all life.  But to non-believers, where will their thanks go?  To whom will their thanksgiving be given?

Unknowingly, they'll express thankfulness, caught up in the season of gratitude and being festively drunk on family and food, there will rise up in the non-believer a moment where their inhibitions will relent shortly and with thankful hearts their gratitude will rise up as well to the "unknown God".  He, after all, is the Giver of the objects they will be thankful for, whether spouse, parents or children, all of which have pressed upon their visages the image of the Creator.  They will be giving thanks to God because He is the originator, giver and bringer of all life.  Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, despite the foolish lies they've, perhaps, bought into, they will be unknowingly thanking Him.

At Mars Hill, as told in the book of Acts, Paul confronts the philosophers, thinkers  and teachers of his day at that gathering place in Greece.  There they had erected a statue to honor the "unknown god" amongst all the "known" gods of their day.  Paul said that this "unknown god" they paid homage to was in actuality the revealed God of the Hebrews who had sent Christ as the sacrifice for sins so that we all might be forgiven and have new life.  This "new" teaching Paul shared with them intrigued them and they sought more teaching by him.  He stayed on there teaching and showing people the Way -- Jesus.

On Thanksgiving Day, all across our nation, thanks will be poured out from merry hearts to the "unknown God" upon the Mars Hill of our hearts.  The sad fact, however, is that without the knowing of this God -- Jesus the Messiah -- they will null any credit that should be tallied to their accounts on behalf of their thankfulness.  Professing to be wise, we become fools because we ignore the evident Giver to which we are so thankful. 

Pray that our unbelieving friends, family and countrymen will see the Christ that loves them so much, who has blessed them so abundantly with their lives and family in whom they love dearly and are thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.

Thoughts From My Journal on What Calvin Miller May Be Doing at This Moment...

This morning from my journal: I was drawn to thinking of Dr. Calvin Miller, author, pastor and professor, who died this year, August 9th, 2012, at the age of 75.  His written works include The Singer Trilogy, The Celtic Path of Prayer, Life is Mostly Edges, Sermon Maker, Into the Depths and his most recent (that touched and helped me beyond any other) Letters to a Young Pastor.  This isn't a complete list of his works, but a good start.  He also has written several children's book and many poems.  Much thanks to Pastor Roger Daniel of Caffee Junction Church of God for introducing me to this great man and writer.  Though I never met him in person, he retired from Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama where I live, and he lived in Trussville just a few miles from where I now pastor.  It seems that we were destined to meet, though it never happened, but one day I'm confident, in Christ, we will.  On the day of his death, when I saw the Tweets concerning his passing... I couldn't help but cry.

Here's the entry from my journal dated Tuesday, November 20th, 2012...

For some reason I'm thinking about Calvin Miller this morning. A man I don't know except through his writings.

 

What a writer and thinker he was here upon this earthly realm.  What a writer and thinker he must now be on that eternal shore where he is no longer inhibited by the limits of mere human expression.  His mind has now been unlocked as the blinding scales of our humanity have been peeled away by Christ's own fingers. 

 

Some might think it absurd to imagine that in Heaven there is writing.  I imagine that the best writing is done there.  Here we're only given a glimpse of the writing potential that exists when no prohibition is made to the artistic expression of such a beautiful form of communication as when the mind has finally been liberated to righteousness, holiness and unhindered perception, now having an eternal vantage point.

Oh the words Calvin now has access to that express such fullness of concepts no human tongue has knowingly uttered; except, perhaps, in some form of charismatic spattering that most of the Christian world condemns as emotional ecstasy.  Those unknown languages, are at his full disposal now, and the concepts he once struggled to string together here (oh that I "struggled" as he) now flow in holy ecstasy expressing the beauty and grandeur he knows now so vibrantly.  Down here, he only could guess at the grandeur he penned in books published on dirty, used presses.  There the grandeur is now bathing him in golden warmth where his soul is satisfied, and his writings printed in angelic hues of electric light on parchment peeled from Divine Presence.

I imagine him with some holy pen (holy because everything in Heavenly is illuminated by light that emanates from God's own Son so that it can be seen and grasped by spiritual hands) feverishly writing of all the new things his eyes have been awakened to.  Perhaps one complete sentence there, though no time at all passes, has taken him here 10,000 years to scribe.

He probably shares in a writers guild with those passed away writers such as Paul, with his letters; Isaiah and Jeremiah, with their oracles; David and his son Solomon, with their poetry and praise; Moses and Esther, with their stories of Presence; Spurgeon, with sermon; Charles Wesley, with song; Tolkien and Lewis, with sheer genius.  I hope, also, that Oscar Wilde is with them having now learned the craft of grace.  He pens now not from the perception of hedonism and sensual exploitation, but from the perception of perfect Love he found on his death bed of sickness from a life wrecked with human taking and grief now redeemed by glowing, piercing beams of grace.  I think they're all, also, waiting in anticipation for their sons Lucado, Zacharias, Chan and Platt to arrive. 

I hope they'll let me sit in on such an eternally, exquisite guild one day.  Not because I'm ever to become an "accomplished" writer such as they, but because I've cried out to the Spirit in my journals of desperate weakness.  In those cries, I hope, something of those inexpressible ecstasies spilled unknowingly onto my pages in groanings that were not written in any audibly recognizable tones of intellectual purpose.

I'm not quite sure what turned my think this morning to Miller, but, for whatever reason, the thought of his writing finally being loosed in Heaven gives hope that Spirit filled writing will be loosed on Earth as well.  The writings that Calvin now engages must be wonderfully expressive and fully complete in a way his human hand never achieved.  I think of him spilling his liberated heart out in divine poetry that no human here can read, but one day, by the heavenly sea, we'll recline and read and marvel still at the works of the Spirit through Calvin Miller.