Today you and I face at least two great struggles. One is local. It is the crime wave sweeping across our county. This danger was made very clear to me by an e-mail that I received from a young mother in our congregation. She told me that her home has been broken into four different times. The family installed an alarm system, but in the latest robbery, the thieves disengaged the alarm system before they broke in. There are two young children in the family. Now they hide their special toys before going to school for fear that they may be stolen. This mother said to me, “Our boys are losing confidence in their parents’ ability to protect them.”
The other struggle we face is the War on Terror. Some think that as soon as we get out of Iraq, the terrorists will leave us alone. They are wrong. Our enemies are developing weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate a moment in using them against us. We dare not be naïve. We must be willing to defend freedom. God does not subsidize lazy or cowardly folks.
Advertisement
Facing these two threats are vital matters. But after we have done our part, God will have the final word. In the final analysis, our security is with God. We can entrust our loved ones, our church and our nation to the only One who is able to safeguard us. And I believe that He will.
Your only assets that are absolutely secure are those that have been entrusted to Christ. When Wall Street is smoldering on the trash heap of history, your investments in Christ will be shining like pure gold.
So here we are on the eve of Thanksgiving. We don’t know what a day may bring, much less a year. Yet we dare to give thanks to God because we can say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (1 Tim. 1:12).
Some time ago one of our retired members of Christ Church was sharing with me memories from her childhood. She said, “My Dad owned a rather large boat and kept it moored near what is now Mud Island. We had many fun times on a sandbar up the river, picnicking and swimming. My brother and I were quite young at the time. Dad would not allow us to go into the water until he had first tied a rope around our waists. He held the other end of those ropes. A few times when I got into deep water, he had to gently pull me to safety. Somehow that rope always made me feel safe because I knew that my Dad was dependable.”
As I listened to that story, I thought about the heavenly Father. Though He does not control us like puppets, there is a kind of invisible rope between Him and us. He loves us so much. He has wonderful and mysterious ways of pulling us out of trouble and keeping us secure in Him. For that I am so thankful.
In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journal, there is a tender section where Emerson reflects painfully on the tragic death of his little son, Waldo. In his grief, Emerson wrote these words of faith: “All that I have seen teaches me to trust God for all that I have not seen.”2
If you believe that with all your heart, then you know the secret of our confidence, and you’re ready for Thanksgiving!
--Bill Bouknight recently retired as Senior Pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tenn. He is a Contributing Editor of Preaching.
1 Moore, James W., When All Else Fails…Read the Instructions (Dimensions for Living: Nashville, 1993), p. 11.
2Moore, James W., When You’re a Christian, the Whole World is from Missouri, (Dimensions for Living: Nashville, 1997), p. 74.