As G.K. Chesterton put it, “The worst moment for the athiest is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”

Nature teaches me nothing about Incarnation or the Victorious Christian Life. It does, though, awaken my desire to meet whoever is responsible for the monarch butterfly.

Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell

Dear God, I was reading Philip Yancey’s memoir, Where the Light Fell, last night and I ran across this quote. He was describing himself as an 18-year-old at Bible college. As one would expect, the Bible college was very myopic as it focused on studying you, your Word, and living the Victorious Christian Life. But there wasn’t a depth to the experience. Yancey was looking for something more to his experience of you. Were there parts of you he was missing. As he started to explore nature he realized that you were surrounding him more than he really knew. Beyond thanking you for the things in his life that materially benefitted him in some way, his eyes were opening to just how all-encompassing you are.

He used this quote from G.K. Chesterton and I liked it so much I highlighted it and then came back to it this morning when I started to pray to you. What would my life be like if I didn’t know I have you to thank for so much? And I’m including it all. The traditional things like my wife and children, my family, my job and my home. You get the idea. But there is so much more for which I’m grateful that Yancey encouraged me to remember last night. I walked out and saw a beautiful waxing new moon last night. I commented to another man in the meeting how beautiful it was. Thank you, Father, for such a beautiful thing as our moon that orbits our little planet. Thank you for the consciousness that brings me to life. Thank you that I truly feel chosen by you. And not chosen to do great work or accomplish anything important. Just chosen to live at all. Thank you for the struggles that break me. Thank you for taking my broken pieces, melting them together, molding them again, and then filling me. Thank you for beauty in nature and monarch butterflies.

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I am grateful I have you to thank. I am grateful to know you. I am grateful for the fact that Jesus did what he did. I am grateful that you are a good God who chooses to love us–love me. I am grateful that you cannot see the f-you list you have for me through Jesus’s blood. I am grateful for the Holy Spirit, being by my side even in this moment. There is much for which I am grateful. Thank you.

I pray all of this in your holy, Trinitarian name,

Amen