Giving Thanks

This week I went to my daughter's for Thanksgiving, and when you are driving for four hours one way, you have a lot of time to think. Too many of us are tied up and entangled in our own self pity to actually take a moment to stop and count our many blessings. Blessings, by the way, that should be shared and not horded for oneself.

During this drive I thought about the many people who would not be spending time during the holidays with family, but many who do not even have a family, much less a home. I thought about the children who live their young lives in pain and torment from those who do not value life, and choose to destroy it, rather than let someone else enjoy it. What has happened to our world?

Many of us choose to put on blinders to the pain, to the evil, to the cruelty and immorality, thinking that if I ignore it, it will go away. I have news for those people who choose to live in a box with no holes with which to view the world outside of it. It won't go away, but it will only get worse. Why?

Isaiah 59:1-15 deals with the Confession of sins and says ... your iniquities have separated you from your God...No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. ...Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey, The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. Today more than ever, I see where people who are Godly and moral speak out against the injustice and the evil in the world only to be targeted and become the prey just as it was spoken by Isaiah in the Old Testament. When did what was wrong just fifty years ago, suddenly become right? When did sex before marriage become a past time, rather than a sin that was shunned? When did calling a child molester a pedophile, become wrong because it might insult him or hurt his feelings? When did displaying a cross or a nativity scene, that was once common practise without a thought, become wrong because someone was insulted?

Do you see a pattern forming here? If we as good moral Christians and citizens continue to close our eyes and put on our blinders, one day we will be blind and we will be mute because we allow the evil to make us their prey. We will live in a society whose mouths are no longer necessary, like that episode of the "Twilight Zone" when people had no mouths. It's time to take a stand on the playground and chase the bully and his cronies out of it.

How? Speak out and raise your children in a manner that is not only pleasing to God, but also in a manner that is moral and pleasing for man, not to man. Teach a child to value life, not destroy it. Teach a child to respect his own property and he will respect his neighbors. Spend time with your children because they are your blessings. Move away from the computer and television and pull out "Candy Land" or "Monopoly." Spend time with your kids while at the same time teaching them to read, to count, and most importantly, teaching them how to properly interact socially. Teach them to be gracious winners and losers. The trend will then turn and the bully will begin to back off the playground because you are no longer giving him room to play in it.

So, count your blessing no matter how small, and share them with someone next to you. The blessing of a simple smile to someone having a bad day may mean more than your think.