The Car Accident
You’re on your way home after a long day at work and them BAM … brake lights everywhere and the traffic comes to a standstill. Then you hear the sirens. The emergencies vehicles zoom past you on the shoulder. You’re stuck and realize nobody is going anywhere for a while.
After some time passes, and you’ve checked your email and texts on your phone, the cars begin to move again. Slowly, you inch your way up past the car accident that had taken place. As we all do, you look over at the cars involved and see just a pile of crushed metal, glass in the street, parts scattered, and emergency first responders doing what they do every day.
As you look at the cars, you say “wow, thank God that wasn’t me … if I was here just a few moments earlier it could have been me in that car … thank God I was delayed at the office.”
Now comes the problem that I am about to address, and it’s more than just semantics. Hear me out … and it will make sense. By thanking “God” that it wasn’t YOU, then where was “God” for the people that were injured or possibly killed in the accident? Herein lies the problem. We should be in a state of thankfulness that we avoided a horrible situation. And we should be prayerful for the people that were involved.
By thanking God for sparing us, you are also putting the blame on God for allowing others to be killed or injured. Because this is entitlement, and not for the common good. In a strange sort of way it say “I’m special, and they aren’t.” I happen to think that “Thanksgiving” should be changed to “Thanksbeing.” Because while many people are feasting on a table filled with food, many people are also starving, and don’t have shelter or even clean water to drink.
So, the same goes for praying over your food. By giving thanks to God for the food on your table, it is that same God/Source who has not providing so many others with food on their table. Instead of thanking Deity, just be thankful. Be in a state of thankfulness. If you own a cell phone, you’re one of the richest people in the world … and that is fact.
God/Source works through us, with us, as us. It is the first responders that we give thanks to in an accident. It is the surgeon and hospital staff that we give thanks to in a successful procedure, it is the PEOPLE who do the work of God. It can’t be any other way. We are the ones who should be providing food for all the Earth’s inhabitants. It us US who should be providing medical supplies to underprivileged nations.
You really feel in your heart that you want to thank God for sparing your from the car accident, or the food on your table? Then thank God for placing the people in our lives who can make a difference for the people that were in that accident. Thank God for jobs, caring people, emergency responders, doctors, soup kitchens, and money donors that help bring safety and shelter to the people of the world. Thank God that when we have to, we all come together like an ant colony and join together for the common good during emergencies, storms, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, and horrible car accidents.
Just a thought …
~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.
