Throughout the month of November I am writing about the first thing for which I am consciously thankful each day. I am doing this simply as a way to be more intentionally grateful. For more on this project, check out the first one or even last year’s 30 Days of Thanks.
Throughout this month of thanks, I have been fairly specific. For the most part I have avoided writing about gratitude for big picture ideas or existential concepts. I have narrowly focused my thoughts toward the here and now, the small things that make life more pleasant, and the day to day blessing that are so abundant.
Truthfully, the first thing for which I was grateful this morning was God’s plan for reconciliation. Several separate thoughts (about afterlife, the severity of sin, and the Old Testament sacrificial system) had, for various reasons, all been bouncing around in my head for the past few days and finally gelled into an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness to God for His generous, if undeserved, offer of salvation. That’s what I was going to write about whenever my day allotted a few minutes to let those thoughts move from my mind to my fingers.
And then the day got busy.
I finally conceded to the realization that there was no way I was going to be able to do this topic justice until after Gateway’s opening home basketball games tonight. Around 9:15 I was driving home and Jack, completely out of the blue, asked “Dad, why did God make us?” I figured this was something he had talked about in school or church and he was just wanting to show off what he had learned so I threw the question back at him. He said “I don’t know. That’s something that no one has ever told me. Why would God make us?”
And that’s when it hit me. I am thankful for God’s offer of redemption, but more importantly, I am grateful that God desires for me to be redeemed. The whole purpose for my being created is to have a relationship with God–for me to be able to reflect His glory and awesomeness in some small way. I want that too, but God wants to be personally connected with me more than I want His salvation. And there’s the amazing part:
I need a Savior who doesn’t need me, but still wants me more than I want Him.
Today, November 30, I am thankful for a God who has a plan to redeem those incapable of recognizing the magnitude of our need for redemption.
Diana Postlewaite
November 30, 2012 at 11:56 pm
The “small” ways you are reflecting His glory and awesomeness are making a “big” impact on your three children and on the teens you stand before each day. This is one of the many days I’m so thankful to be your mom.