Gratitude Series: In Everything Give Thanks
by Jim Cofield
I am sitting in the Seattle airport, waiting for my flight to Dallas and then to home in Chattanooga. It has been a quick trip. I arrived here yesterday. It has been a sad trip. I came for a Memorial Service of a pastor whose wife and four children will now be living their lives without him. It has been a difficult trip. I am struggling over the fact that he took his life.
But it has also been a grounding trip. I’ve experienced the Good News of life in and with Christ in a more profound way. At the Service hundreds celebrated his life and grieved his death. But not as people without hope. Because we are IN Christ we will live WITH Christ and all who are in Him forever. Death will not have the last word. An eternal life is our present and our future. Somehow, staring at his picture on the front of the Order of Service increased both my sadness and my confidence in our destiny.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” For this I am grateful. I cannot go back a couple weeks and change the course of this man’s life. But all of us can make a difference moving forward.
What will gratitude motivate you to do as you “press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?” (Philippians 3:14)