My Recliner
We
purchased it a couple of months ago, but it isn’t my first chair. The first chair I remember loving with a deep
intimate love j/k was an old rocking chair
with a matching ottoman. It was really
old but had been restored and was given to me by an older couple from England
whom I had recently baptized into Christ.
I loved that chair but my wife didn’t.
The second one was years later and it was overstuffed leather and it was
cozy. When I reclined in that thing it
practically swallowed me up, but soon it became cracked, wore out, and ugly (at
least in my wife’s opinion).
The
third one was fairly non-descript but served it’s purpose and was still all
mine. And then came the Super Bowl of
Recliners, the Mack Daddy of comfortability, the mother of all recliners. It’s
the perfect size, incredibly comfortable, has a couple cup holders, enough room
to store my laptop or cell phone or tablet.
It has a USB port to plug my cell phone in, a back massager, and when I
tip back in that thing with my electric blanket covering me, I forget that it’s
stinking cold outside and I am in heaven.
Here’s
the thing though, it doesn’t shield me from life. I still have to get up to go make sure that
Carter truly has wiped his butt; to play referee when my two boys are going at
it; to do various chores that my wife has been waiting months for me to do and
is fed up with my procrastination. In
fact in some ways it makes things more difficult because when I get in that chair
all my serving skills go out the window.
I just want to relax, enjoy my chair, my TV, my computer, or whatever it
is that I’m selfishly indulging in, and I have no desire to serve others.
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I
have another chair though that I call my Thanksgiving Chair. It’s hard, cold, rigid, ugly, and serves one
purpose only. That purpose is to be able
to see how to be thankful in every circumstance – 1 Thess. 5:18. Notice that the verse doesn’t say be thankful
about every circumstance but in every circumstance. This (fictional) chair is with me always, it
helps me to focus on what’s important.
You see celebrations and thanksgiving and bdays and anniversaries are
awesome, but when I get in my Thanksgiving Chair, so are busted up lips (from
falling down the stairs), and disagreements with my wife, and frustrations
about the government, or things going on with the Church, or the state of
poverty in America, or achy knees or bad backs.
When
I’m in that chair, these things become opportunities for me to show God’s love
in those situations, even to be thankful for the opportunity to bear with these
aggravations and irritations and turn them into God moments. God was still there when Job was penniless
and destitute, He was still there when David was in the throes of sin, He was
still there when baby Moses floated in the river, and He is definitely there in
your moments of stress, hurt, fear, loss, etc.
Take time to get out of the comfortability of the recliner, take a seat
in the hard unbending Thanksgiving Chair and refocus. We are in this world but not of it. Am I thankful for the restful moments, the fun
moments, and the celebration moments? Absolutely! But am I thankful for the other moments? That depends on what chair I’m sitting in.
Thank
you God for my Thanksgiving Chair!
In Christ, Lance
Btw
I got this idea from a video clip that I found and purchased on Sermonspice.com
just to be clear and not to plagiarize.
I will post the video on facebook after I use it on Sunday!
