Giving Thanks

 

1 Chronicles 16:34  -  Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Psalm 7:17  -  I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalm 118:21  -  I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation.

1 Corinthians 15:57  -  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 9:15  -  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Colossians 3:17  -  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

1 Thessalonians 5:18  -  Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Revelation 7:12  -  Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever.

Revelation 11:17  -  We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

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Truth is...The act of giving thanks is evidence that you recognize someone has been responsible for something good in your life that you did not earn or deserve. In which case, who better to be thankful to than the One who has been responsible for the greatest good of all?

It Doesn't HAVE To Be Science Or Faith

 

I recently started reading a book by a couple of Jesuit priests who work at the Vatican observatory (Guy Consolmagno and Paul Mueller). It's titled Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? and its first chapter gives a great analogy that explains how science and religion don't have to be at odds with each other.

One piece of background explanation: the painting that is referenced in this quote was not painted with brushstrokes of paint, but was created using a technique called pointillism, where the image was built up by adding colors dot by dot, much like the digital imaging techniques used today.

When I look at A Sunday on La Grande Jatte  -  1884, I keep flipping back and forth between seeing the whole scene, which is lots of people enjoying a beautiful day in the park, and seeing the little dots from which that scene is made up. But to me that doesn't mean the world is falling apart  -  it means that there is more than one way to see the world. One way is to see the big picture, the everyday world of common experience. Another way is to see the world as analyzed by science: a world of tiny atoms, of particles and waves, of fields of force  -  a world that can be described mathematically.

That's one way to get at relating science and faith: think of it as flipping back and forth between two different ways of seeing one and the same world. We can see the world through the eyes of science or through the eyes of faith.

When you see the world through the eyes of faith, you are often very much concerned with everyday experiences of what is right and good and beautiful. You are concerned with how your life hangs together and makes sense  -  or doesn't!

But when you see the world through the eyes of science, your concerns are different. You want to know how the world works and what it's made of, right down to its smallest pieces. The world as analyzed by science can seem disconnected from the world of everyday experience, just as the dots in Seurat's painting can seem disconnected from the larger image.

The trick is to get comfortable with the idea of flipping back and forth between two different ways of seeing. And the trick, also, is not to panic if one way of seeing omits something that the other includes, or emphasizes something that the other neglects.

So you can see this painting as a collection of dots, or you can see it as an image of people in a park. Both descriptions are true. If one of them is true, it doesn't make the other one false.

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Truth is...and I think I may have said this before...when presented with an either/or choice, sometimes the best option is both/and.

Whether Your Candidate Won or Lost...

 

In these days following the mid-term elections, let's make something abundantly clear.

Ephesians 4:31-32 (NIV)  -  Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

(NLT)  -  Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

(Phillips)  -  Let there be no more resentment, no more anger or temper, no more violent self-assertiveness, no more slander and no more malicious remarks, Be kind to each other, be understanding. Be as ready to forgive others as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.

(Voice)  -  Banish bitterness, rage and anger, shouting and slander, and any and all malicious thoughts — these are poison. Instead, be kind and compassionate. Graciously forgive one another just as God has forgiven you through the Anointed, our Liberating King.

(Amplified)  -  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor [perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding] and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of malice [all spitefulness, verbal abuse, malevolence]. Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you.

(The Message)  -  Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.

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Truth is...If you can recognize your own need for forgiveness and have gladly received it from Yahweh, how could it be possible to withhold such a blessing from anyone else?

White Majority In The Rearview Mirror

 

I've got bad news for those wanting to hang on to the myth of white superiority and primacy. From Brown Is the New White by Steve Phillips:

"The country's demographic revolution over the past fifty years has given birth to a New American Majority. Progressive people of color now comprise 23 percent of all the eligible voters in America, and progressive whites account for 28 percent of all eligible voters. Together, these constituencies make up 51 percent of the country's citizen voting-age population, and that majority is getting bigger every single day. ...

"The New American Majority is growing larger every single day (every minute, actually). Each day, the size of the U.S. population increases by more than 8,000 people, and nearly 90 percent of that growth consists of people of color. To understand this startling reality, one must look at the rate of births and deaths, and the rise in immigration.

"In terms of births, as of 2011, the majority of babies born in America (50.4 percent) are now people of color. A baby is born every seven seconds, resulting in 12,343 births per day. At the other end of the age spectrum, the racial composition of the over-65 segment of the popula­tion is quite different. Because of centuries of racially exclusionary im­migration policies, the total U.S. population was nearly 90 percent white as recently as 1950. As a result, the current over-65 population is 78 percent white. Using that figure to estimate the ra­cial breakdown of the country's deaths -- which occur at a rate of 6,646 per day (once every thirteen seconds) -- it's clear that while a majority of births are people of color, deaths are overwhelmingly white.

"What this means for net population growth, then, is that the white birth number of 6,048 new babies each day (49 percent of the babies born every day) are largely canceled out by the 5,204 white deaths ev­ery day. For people of color, the 6,295 daily births (51 percent of all births) are only reduced by 1,442 deaths, leaving a net increase of 4,853 people of color every day.

"And then there are the immigration numbers. Implied, feared, but unstated in America's heated immigration debate is a remarkable pop­ulation statistic -- more than 90 percent of all immigrants to America are people of color. In terms of legal immigration alone, 2,618 people are added to the U.S. population each day, nearly all of them people of color (reflecting the reality that most of the people outside of the United States are people of color). When those numbers are added to the net increase from births and deaths for people of color, the bottom line is that each and every day, 7,261 people of color are added to the U.S. population, in contrast to the white growth of 1,053 people."

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Truth is...It's way past time for "red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight" to make it into the hearts of adults and not just Sunday School children.