Thankful - did you ever tell anyone?

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

I met a man on the streets that I had previously met a number of times. As I gave him something to eat, he looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Thanks Stu, I haven’t eaten today!’ His look was genuine, and it left a mark on me. As children we were taught to say please and thank you and I am sure that at times this seemed very irksome, but it is the right thing to do and when the words 'thank you' are used with sincerity they mean much.

I can remember an interview with the boxer Barry McGuigan who was at great pains to thank everyone who had helped him to be a great success. The commentator chuckling said that he had forgotten to thank the lady that cleaned the toilets! It is better to be thankful than arrogant and think that all success is fully reliant on you!

The Lord Jesus was teaching the crowd when a man from the crowd asked Him to sort out a money dispute that he had with his brother. We are not told, but maybe there was great wealth and each of them felt that they had played a major part in creating it. Rather than sort out the problem the Lord Jesus told a parable of a farmer who had ploughed his fields and planted his crops and now had a huge problem!

The problem was that the farmer had a bumper harvest and there was no room to store all the crops. After a little thought the farmer decided to pull down his barns and build bigger ones so that the produce could be stored. With it all safely stored away the farmer reflected on his harvest and thought what a great farmer he was, how successful he had been. 

The conclusion that he came to was that he needed to work no longer, his life would be one of ease, he would eat, drink and be merry. He had all that he needed for many years and now he would enjoy the fruits of his labour. He only cared about himself, there was no thought for his workers, no thought of the poor, no thought for the less fortunate. Yet worse still there was no thought of God. His life had been a success, but God was left out of his thought completely.

Who had created this world, the soil and the conditions we enjoy? Who sent the rain at the right time for the seeds to germinate and be watered? Who sent the sunshine to encourage growth and ripen the harvest? Of course, this was God! The farmer left God out of the equation, out of his reckoning, out of everything.

God called this man a fool! Psalm 14 tells us that, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God!’ We would be foolish to leave God out, He did not leave us out of His thoughts. In fact, He demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were still sinners He sent Christ to die for us! God did all that He had to do to bring us to Himself. It cost the Lord Jesus so much. When we look to God and thank the Lord Jesus for dying for us and trust in Him, we have our sin forgiven and our future secured.

The farmer ignored God, that night he died! The farm then belonged to someone else, he could not take the riches with him, and neither can we. When we trust in the Lord Jesus and know Him as our Saviour, we may be poor on earth, but we will be rich towards God. The blessings God has for us are far greater than anything this world has to offer. Be wise! Trust God! Follow in His ways!

Written by Stuart Scammell for Messages with Meaning (16/06/21) & Your542Day