The Links Daily Devotional will not publish on Thursday, November 26, which is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. You can read with us again on Friday.
In every thing give thanks… (1 Thessalonians 5:18a, KJV)
Tiger Woods and I make quite a team. We both have a 10 on a par-3 in the final round of a tournament, and we have combined to win five Masters between us.
I’ll let you decide whose 10 was more adventurous. You most likely saw Tiger’s on CBS a couple Sundays ago. There are no cameras at my club championship, so you’ll just have to imagine Jim Nantz calling the play-by-play of this gem.
Tee shot into the right greenside bunker. Skull into the lip. A second time. Hat trick!
“Deep breath. Don’t look back at the tee to see how many groups are waiting,” I told myself.
Encouraged by my own self-talk, I sailed my double bogey attempt across the green into a cooling fan, which spit my ball into a creek. Drop. Chip onto the green. Poured in the third putt. Center cut.
Unlike Tiger, I didn’t respond to my mishap with five birdies in six holes, but I’m not writing about an on-course response, rather a heart response. As Paul urged the Thessalonians in today’s verse, we are to give thanks in “every thing.” It’s two words because the Greek actually implies every individual thing.
While my situation was embarrassing, there was no shortage of individual reasons to be grateful: it was a gorgeous day that the Lord had made, I was playing golf at a nice country club, and my health was allowing me to play a game I love.
While I don’t think Paul had golf in mind when making his exhortation, I do think my current circumstance qualifies.
As we sit down for our family meal on Thursday, it will be easy to rejoice as prayers have been answered.My wife Susan and I and our three kids will be celebrating Thanksgiving by ourselves this year. There hasn’t been a single holiday in our 24 years of marriage that we haven’t spent at least part of the day with one side of the family or the other, but because of the pandemic, all have agreed to restrict the day to respective nuclear families.
Sure, it would be easy to curse COVID-19, lament the current political climate, and argue the evils of social media.
Not me. I’m taking Paul’s advice to rejoice and give thanks. The five of us have never had the opportunity to spend the whole day to ourselves. We have a roof over our head and food to eat. And Susan will be celebrating with us.
That last one may seem kind of lame until I give you the context. My wife was diagnosed with appendix cancer in February. At that point I didn’t know if she’d be with us for St. Patrick’s Day, let alone Thanksgiving.
One might ask, “How should we give thanks in the midst of cancer treatment?” I found three reasons on which to focus. We are blessed with health care coverage, so healing won’t break us financially. All things considered, it was a good year to get treated, as Susan didn’t miss any kids’ activities (which didn’t happen). And God has placed me in a role where I had the flexibility to be with Susan for every appointment.
As we sit down for our family meal on Thursday, it will be easy to rejoice as prayers have been answered. After enduring three surgeries and 10 chemo treatments, how can we not give thanks that Susan will get to enjoy some turkey knowing no more treatment looms over her head?
Gobble. Gobble.
—
Drew Hamilton
November 25, 2020
Copyright 2020 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.