Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

• Psalm 136:1-3

He remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
and freed us from our enemies.
His love endures forever.
He gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.

• Psalm 136:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-24

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

• 1 Corinthians 15:57

He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

• 2 Corinthians 1:10-11

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

• 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs told me I needed to heed the example from God and rest more.

This week Babs was thankful we had taken a side trip to return for the Thanksgiving holidays.  But she was thankful for a lot more.

As she came down to the kitchen where I grilled some burgers, she was excited.

Babs said, “We have the whole family coming for Thanksgiving.  This is great!  We got home in enough time to do the cooking, but I am ‘other living.’  I have no idea at all how to cook a turkey.”

I snickered, “Don’t worry Babs.  We may not get everything done the way my wife did things, but I always cooked the turkey.  Besides Morrie said his wife was cooking the yams, and Willie is cooking the green-bean casserole.  I have my wife’s recipe for home-made cranberry sauce.  My Dad taught me how to make dressing instead of stuffing.  We went by the grocery store on the way home.  Thank you for driving home today.  I am well rested.  The oven is heating, and we will bake a lot of cornbread.  My wife used to toast bread, but we have stale bread since we have been gone for so long.  We will roast the turkey as soon as we get the cornbread ready.

We worked from that point until we were thoroughly exhausted.  I said that we could simply go to bed in that everything was ready for Thanksgiving morning.  The turkey would be fully cooked, and we only needed to transfer some juice to the cornbread mixture (cornbread and stale bread chopped up, celery, onions, and poultry seasoning) and then bake the dressing.  And we needed to take more of the juice to make gravy.

But Babs insisted that we stop to give thanks, and also do a Bible Study about thankfulness.

Since we weren’t in a hotel room, we discussed where to go, but since there were so many great smells emanating from the kitchen, we decided on the kitchen table.

Babs started, “Harold, I am so glad that I became ‘other living’ a little over a year ago.  This has been a once in a lifetime type thing.  I got to meet so many people all over the country.  I could mention all their names, but it would take hours.  We were in all forty-eight states, just not Alaska and Hawaii.  What do you call that?”

I replied, “The forty-eight contiguous states.”

Babs giggled, “Yes, and you made sales in all of them except Nevada and Rhode Island.  You had a good year.  Add that to your huge project sales last year and you have the top sales record and the second place record.  You will get a good bonus.  After you give a large portion to God, you need to save the rest.”

I smiled, “Babs, I owe that to you, I think.  There seemed to be this aura about you.  I was confident.  You showed me where I had drifted away from my love of the customers.  With caring more for the customers instead of being preoccupied with my wife, they responded better to the sales pitch.  But I just knew I would get a sale because you were with me.”

Babs scrunched her nose.  “You had God with you, Harold.  All I did was go along for the ride and give you a boost of energy here and a bit of confidence there.  God did the rest.”

I nodded, “Then I have to add that to my thanksgiving list.  You and God made my sales bountiful this year, and last year was simply something unheard of.  Our company had gotten that many sales in a year, but not by one sales manager in only four months.  I don’t think the bonus system was set up for that.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “Nope, I don’t think so either.  But getting back to the thanks.  I dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and each of the Great Lakes and the Great Salt Lake.  I got to walk across the Mississippi River.  It wasn’t like crossing the Jordan River, but it was fun.  I looked out from on top of some really high buildings, and we got to see a lot of National Parks.”

I nodded, “I’ll have all those on my list too, Babs.  With my wife’s illnesses, we were always rushing home to get back for doctor visits.  We had done those things, but not for many years.  You being with me and so eager to see everything and do as much as possible, that energized me to remember the sights along the way.  That made me feel ten years younger as you got so excited each time you saw something new.  Did you say something about a Bible study?”

Babs smiled, “I was thinking that we could give thanks for a lot longer than this, but no, I promised.  What do you think of Psalm 136?”

I smiled, “The ‘His love endures forever’ psalm?  It is all about thankfulness.  It starts off with attributing to God all that is good, and we should thank God just for being God.  Then it goes into the history of the Israelites.  When you consider all the near misses with traffic mishaps this past year, we could have been seriously hurt many times over.  People have been a bit angrier this year than they usually are, and I am ever so grateful that you were there to be an extra set of eyes.  But the bulk of Psalm 136 is about how God was there for the Israelites, and they should be thankful for all that.  Then the last four verses talk about being freed from enemies and protected.  We could list a lot of people who might have meant us harm, but God protected us.  The bulk is Israelites history, but the entire psalm talks of how God is involved.  And why is He involved in our lives?  His love endures forever.”

Babs gave me a pouty face.  “You ask the questions, and I am supposed to answer.  I knew that answer!”

I chuckled, “You’re cute.  What’s next?”

Babs said, “First Corinthians 11:23-24 is part of the instructions for the Last Supper.  Paul says that Jesus gave them bread.  He thanked God for the bread.  And then He said that this was His body.  I have a couple of questions.  One is that the seder involves a lot more than bread and wine.  And is this prayer of thanks still used today?”

I smiled, “Okay, as for the seder, or the Passover meal, there is a lot more to the meal.  But if entire churches were celebrating the meal, it could become difficult from the logistical side of things.  And what if you were dealing with poor people, people on the go, maybe people hiding due to persecution.  It could be that they might only have bread and wine.  Besides, those two things were used to symbolize the body and blood of Jesus.  So, if you wanted to have a lavish meal, sure, you could do that.  But the bread and wine are the two symbolic elements for the Last Supper remembrance.  Jesus points out those two elements and when you eat and drink of them in remembrance of Him, He is there with you, not that He isn’t there all the time anyway.  But we have that specific promise.”

I took a breath, “And the act of thanking God for the bread is now done at each meal when we give thanks for God’s provision.  At least, that is what blessing the meal is all about.  We recognize, like in Psalm 136, that we would not have the bountiful feast without God’s help.  So, the prayer is part of the Last Supper, or communion, or the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper.  Whatever name you like.  There are probably some more.”

Babs said, “And what is the victory that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15 at the end of the chapter?”

I shrugged, “It could mean any victory, but Paul has been reassuring the Corinthians that we have victory over death.  There will be a resurrection of the dead.  Various arguments have been used as to what that means.  Who will be resurrected?  That kind of thing.  But most people point to other Scriptures that say that to breathe our last is to be with Jesus in Paradise.  The idea is that when we die, our next conscious moment will be to open our eyes in a new body and see Jesus.  So, does our soul go back to earth and rise from our ashes to complete the idea of the resurrection of the dead?  Or are we already there and other people are resurrected to fight evil with Jesus?”

Babs said, “Or you could have just counted! 1, 2, 3.” And then we sang “I don’t know” to the tune of my doorbell.  At that moment, the doorbell rang.

Babs giggled, “Hey, the doorbell is off key.”

I laughed, “You and I being off key could never be the answer.”  Then, the doorbell rang again.

It was Morrie.  “I brought over asparagus and some stuffing mix.”

Babs said, “Willie is coming tomorrow with green bean casserole.  And Harold is going to teach me how to make dressing tomorrow.  The turkey is nearly done already.”

Morrie said, “Wow!  You must have gotten back in record time!  I’ll put the stuffing mix in the pantry and the asparagus in the fridge, it’s fresh.  If someone doesn’t like green bean casserole, they can have some parmesan garlic asparagus.  That was Mom’s go-to dish.”

I grunted, “After I found the recipe and made it for her for our anniversary one year.  Nobody remembers that I made it the first time.  She just fell in love with it, maybe because I had made it, and we haven’t had asparagus any other way since then.”

Morrie put up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay!  Your champion asparagus dish is a big hit, Dad.”  Then we all laughed.

Babs said, “Sit down, Morrie.  We were getting near the end of our Bible study.”  Morrie shrugged, but he checked his watch.  It was already getting late.  “Harold, Second Corinthians talks about being thankful that God saves us from peril.  When we went through our thanksgiving before we started this, we both talked about our rescues and protection from God this past year, but what is Paul speaking of?”

I smiled, “Okay, Morrie, Paul is talking about being so afraid that he thought he might be killed in Asia Minor.  This was after Paul had been to Corinth, so what might have been the event?”

Morrie scratched his head for a little while.  “The stoning on his first missionary journey was before he had ever been to Corinth, but the riot in Ephesus was after.”

I said, “Ding, ding, ding.  The right answer.  He had skipped Ephesus and the surrounding cities on his second missionary journey until on the way home.  The Spirit had led Paul to Macedonia.  So, the riot was some time later on the third missionary journey.  But Paul had been stoned and beaten before the riot and he was not at the theater when the riot occurred.  But Aristarchus and Gaius were there and their lives were in danger, and Paul wanted to rescue them.  Paul’s other friends stopped him, and a city official broke up the mob before they went too far.  So, I think this is what Paul was referring to.”

Babs giggled, “As we can learn from this that God is always helping us, and it is never more apparent than when the situation is totally out of our control.  Right?”

Morrie and I nodded.

Then Babs said, “And now to conclude our discussion on giving thanks, what is a really good verse that sums up the whole idea of giving thanks?”

Morrie said, “First Thessalonians 5:16-18, ‘Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.‘”

Babs giggled and scrunched her nose, “Wow!  We are going to have to have Morrie over more often!”

Morrie looked at his watch.  “I am glad that was the summary.  I have to go.  We have a house full and they are late risers.”

We said our good-byes and he was gone.

And my greatest thankfulness is for Morrie accepting Jesus into his heart.  It saved his marriage which was on its last leg, and prepared Morrie for a blessed life now and the next life to come.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My mother insisted that no matter how far away, except when we were in Germany, we had to be home for Thanksgiving.  I think that soured our sons to the family aspect of the tradition.  I was at my son’s in Tennessee a year or two ago for the holiday and everything that he cooked was non-traditional.  I got to eat goose for the first time, but when I got back home, I baked a turkey just for me.  And I had a ton of dressing, using the green part of green onions and a little fennel instead of the usual onions.  What I learned from his non-traditional dishes was with my IBS issues, I can make a simple green bean dish with lemon and ginger.  The casserole just isn’t the casserole without the fried onion rings.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.