Thankful for My Children's Baths and Beds

At my staff meeting this morning, Wes Church, our college minister, challenged each of us to share what we are thankful for this time of year. I had just been thinking the other day of how thankful I am to live in a country that is ideal to raise children in. For instance, any time my young kids are sick my wife and I just pack up and go to the doctor, or hospital if needed. While we complain about the medical bills, we know that our children are getting most certainly the best health care that the world has to offer. Thankfully, in His manifold wisdom and providence, God has chosen to place my family in a blessed part of the world.

Most of the world does not live this way. In fact, an estimated 97% of world families make less than $30,000 a year. Many more make only dollars a year.

Lost in all of the media's coverage of trying to save our planet by "going green" and worshiping the earth we don't even think about the the fact that all around the world children are living like this.

Kids live in abject poverty in many parts of the world. The pictures that I just linked to you are shocking when you see toddlers laying on the ground by themselves with a turned over empty bottle - or the heartbreaking image of kids bathing each other in contaminated sewer water. The world clearly does not care about children. Why? Because what benefit can the world have from caring about children? Worshiping the earth makes sense, because if one doesn't believe that God is ultimately in control of everything, then the earth itself is the supreme object of worship because without it man cannot exist.

The fact that Jesus loved children is another aspect of what makes Jesus' incarnation so remarkable. He not only came for the lost adults but for the helpless children who are bathing in fecal water and sleeping on the ground, abandoned. Through the promise of Jesus we can also take hope that one day all will redeemed and there will be no more crying and suffering.

And that means no more bathing in sewer water.

This Thanksgiving take time to thank God for allowing you the privilege of living in a country where your children are cared for - and for serving a God that sent his Son to die so that the suffering of helpless children, among other things, will ultimately cease.