Thanksgiving 2008

Yeah, it's a turkey dog.






We have a tendency in this country to do a couple of things with this day of the year. We either turn it into a time of thanks for family, football, and food, or we trivialize it altogether with silliness like the picture above.

Then I remember that Cole's Hill was the end of a dream for 80 out of the first 120 pilgrims that landed on the shores of Massachusetts.

The first Thanksgiving was born out of gratitude to God for preserving the rest.

My Father and Mother never forgot growing up during the Depression - a hard time to be a teenager. I suspect they were not even thinking about Christmas at this time of year, or sitting across a table anything like what most of us will (or are) today.

So all things considered, I thank God for the blessings my family enjoys today as we gather in peace, in abundance, and in love.

Just Throw Strikes

It's Saturday night, the weekend before Thanksgiving. I've worked all week on the

next "Mythbuster", attacking the myth of "God owes me". Most preachers I talk to say that the holiday sermons are the hardest. I tend to agree. The "land" has been plowed so many times that you and your congregation can write the sermon without you saying anything.

"be more thankful" - now let's eat.

The temptation is to try to get fancy. To come up with something no one has ever seen before. Ray Pritchard gave me a word on that tonight I wanted to share.

The following story comes from my friend Dave Burchett. It seems that a young pitcher for the Texas Rangers had just been called up from the minors. He got his big chance because he had shown a fearless ability to throw strikes no matter who was at the plate. Finally the night came when he was going to pitch in the major leagues for the first time. Like many players getting their first start, the young hurler was nervous and it showed on the mound. Thinking he needed to make a good impression, he tried this pitch and that pitch. Slider, fastball, curve, forkball, you name it, he tried it. He pitched high, low, inside, outside, in the dirt, he was all over the place. He walked batters left and right, and the ones he didn’t walk hit the ball hard. At length, having seen enough, the manager decided to talk to the young man. When he got to the mound, the manager put his hand on the pitcher’s shoulder and said, “Son, Babe Ruth is dead. Throw strikes.”

That’s good advice for budding pitchers. Babe Ruth is dead so don’t try to be cute. Just throw strikes. Put the ball over the plate. If they hit it, they hit it, but don’t try to throw some kind of fancy pitch you haven’t mastered yet. Throw strikes. That’s the heart of good pitching.

My task is to draw them into the story, and deliver the Word as it was and as it is. Might not be unique. But it will be real.