“He that gives no thanks for one mercy, has little ground to expect another.” –John Flavel
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Many of us will be with family and friends eating turkey, enjoying pie and watching the Detroit Lions lose (again). The experience will be pleasant. How can we make it even better? Take a quiet moment and meditate on the Lord who created you and who sustains your life. Recently, Eric Davis, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming quantified some of the many blessings of our biological life. He writes: “By the time you hit 30 years old:
- You have taken about 252,000,000 breaths. That’s 252,000,000 times where your diaphragm and lungs did their thing. How many of those were you consciously and effortfully ensuring that you breathed? “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- You have breathed about 26,500,000 gallons of God’s air. That’s the equivalent of the amount of air that could fill a building whose dimensions were 100 ft long, 100 ft wide, and 350 ft tall. “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- You have eaten roughly 50,000 lbs of God’s food (about the weight equivalent of 10-12 cars). You’ll add to that significantly on Thanksgiving. “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- God has made your heart beat about one billion times. A billion. How many of those billion thumps were you consciously and effortfully thinking, “OK, body, make my heart beat! Again! Again! And while you do, make sure that my mitral, tricuspid, aortic, and pulmonary valves all open and close and do their thing!”? “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- God has made your heart pump about 3,500,000 gallons of blood through your body. That’s 111,111 barrels of blood, pumped smoothly throughout your entire body. And, it takes the heart less than 60 seconds to pump blood to every single cell in your body. “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- God has sustained the roughly 37,000,000,000,000 cells in your body. That’s 37 trillion cells moseying around. What have we done to keep track of them, make sure they function, and go where they should? “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
- God has sustained the 100 billion neurons in your brain. Inside that melon-sized gray matter are 100 billion neurons firing away. “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!””[1]
David, goes a little farther than Eric Davis, when he writes, “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” (Psalm 9:1, ESV) God not only sustains our biological life, he also provides for us spiritually. In Christ, we have every spiritual blessing. Our salvation is secure in him. In him, we have grace upon grace—a storehouse of blessings poured out in due season. Our physical lives are a wonder! How much more should we give glory and express thanks to God for the spiritual life that is ours in Christ. It will never grow weak, fade, or perish. Have a blessed Thanksgiving and we will see you on Sunday!
Love in Christ,
Pastor Dale