Monday Morning Manna: Thanksgiving Reflections

Thanksgiving is over. By news report, another forty-six million turkeys have been consumed. Calories and memories remain. As I reflect on Thanksgiving past, I am thankful for at least three things, and they come from a rather unusual source. In Genesis 16 Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar had made a mess of God’s plans. Hagar was in the process of running away, when she discovered three things. (1) – “the angel of the Lord found her” (Genesis 16:7). (2) God directed her to “return. . . and submit” (Genesis 16:9) and (3) God was “the God who sees” (Genesis 16:13). Like Hagar, I am glad God found me. I wasn’t running away, but I wasn’t that easy to find either – large city, large school, large church, following the, “be seen and not heard” theory of child raising. Still at age nine, God found me, saved me, and then at age sixteen, called me to serve Him. I’m thankful. I’m also thankful, like Hagar, that God directed and re-directed me. Once God begins to direct us, correction and re-direction is a part of the plan, but I am thankful. Like Hagar, I am also thankful that God could see beyond what I could see. Had I seen where God would lead me, it might have scared me into disbelief. But God knew, I followed, and I am thankful. William Bradford, arriving on the Mayflower, then becoming the first Governor of the Plymouth Colony, wrote: “Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean.” Having made it through yet another Thanksgiving season, I join Hagar in lessons learned and re-learned, and I join Bradford’s pilgrims on my knees in thanksgiving for God’s leadership in my life.

Dr. Dan Crawford, Senior Professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, is the WestCoast Baptist Association’s Spiritual Life & Leadership Mentor. Follow Dan on Twitter @DrDanRC and Facebook www.facebook.com/dan.crawford.