William F. Kirk was a columnist who loved baseball, and just before his death he wrote
this poem couched in baseball terms to express his thanks for life.
"The doctor knows what his trained eyes see,
And he says it is the last of the 9th for me;
One more swing while the clouds loom dark, And then I must leave this noisy park.
'Twas a glorious game from the opening bell,
Good plays, bad plays and thrills pellmell;
The speed of it burned my years away,
But I thank my God that He let me play!
Not everybody gets into the game, and many who do strike out before they get on base.
Many others are left on base and never get home to make their efforts count. Joseph felt
this way when he was in the pit and then in prison. God had taken him out of play and put
him on the bench. He thought he was in there pitching and really on the ball, but his brother
said he was a foul ball and off base, and so they sent him to the dugout. His brother Judah
went to bat for him, and so he wasn't out in left field, but got a rain check on the game of life,
and he was sold into slavery rather than left to perish in the pit.
It took Joseph several innings to learn the score, but he finally realized he had not struck
out after all. It was about 20 years later (that is a baseball park figure) when the final inning
arrived and he was the pitcher. He tells his brothers that even though they broke the rules
of fair play, the umpire, which was God, was not throwing them out of the game. Instead He
is saying "play ball". He is giving them a second chance. Joseph is saying to them that the
grace of God has taken their evil deed and turned it into a great good. He took their foul
ball and made it, not only a fair ball, but a home run. He turned their devilish plot into a
divine plan of deliverance. The bottom line is that all 12 brothers could end their life by
saying thank God He let me play.
They all had plenty of trials and hardships, and some of them lost their contracts and
suffered a lot of penalties, but God let them play the game of life and become the foundation
for His chosen people. That is the number one basis for Thanksgiving. It is just the fact that
God has let you play the game. All of us are only here today because God has let us play the
game of life. There was hundreds of thousands of other potential players when you were
conceived, but God chose you to get in the game. The theological term for this is called
providence. It is God's working in history to determine who gets to play the game, and who
gets to win the game.
One of the notable themes of the account of Joseph is his gratitude for God's providence
in his life. Providence means God's providing hand for protection and progress. When all
goes well and Murphy's Law is counteracted so that even bad things work out for good, that
is what we call providential. One of the synonyms for providence in the dictionary is lucky.
That is the secular perspective. They would look at Joseph's life and say he was just lucky.
But when you see the Lord in charge, and not impersonal luck, you call it providence.
Joseph is so aware of the hand of God in his life that he just keeps on repeating it. In
verse 5 he says, "God sent me ahead of you." In verse 7 he says, "God sent me ahead of you
to preserve and save you." In verse 8 he says, "It was not you but God who sent me here."
In verse 9 he says, "God has made me lord of all Egypt." Joseph was not blind to all the
human hands in his history. His brothers sold him to the Midianites, and they carried him to
Egypt. The lying wife of Potipher put him in prison where he met the chief cup bearer of Pharaoh,
and he finally told Pharaoh about his ability to interpret dreams. Pharaoh made
the decision to put him in charge of the country. A lot of people are playing a role in h
is life, but Joseph knows that the hand behind them all is God's hand. Everybody was just doing
their own thing, but God was the one who was using it all to achieve the goal of salvation.
The reason Joseph could forgive his brothers was because he saw the hand of God in
history. You can forgive people of their terrible evil against you if you can see that God uses
even that for His goals. I am amazed at Joseph's ability to forgive and forget. Many, if not
most, who get to the level of power he had would get revenge on all who did them wrong.
Joseph could have had the lustful wife put in prison or stoned, but that was not his style. He
never sought revenge on any of the people who treated him like dirt. He was just grateful
for a God whose hand was on his life and let him play the game.
All of us experience God's providence. What we seldom stop to think about is that God's
providence works even in the lives of nonbelievers as well as believers. Christians often want
to be so exclusive with God, and, like the Jews of old, think of him as caring just about them
and nobody else. They forget the plan of God is to bless the whole world and not just a
special segment of it. When God led Joseph to the head of Egypt it was not just to save his
people from the famine, but the Egyptians and other peoples as well. Providence is not
God's hand in history just for the Jews or Christians. History is filled with God's providence
in the lives of people in all nations. God's special love for His chosen people does not mean
He does not lead and guide in the lives of those who are not His people. The goal of God is
that all would become a part of His people, and He does not ignore them until they do.
One of the traditions that the Jews have is that Pharaoh himself became a believer in
Jehovah. Many of the Egyptians became converts and left Egypt with the Jews in the
exodus. Thank God for His providence, for it is a matter of universal grace. It is the key
reason for gratitude everywhere in the world. In reading the autobiography of Gandhi I was
impressed with his experience of and thankfulness for the providence of God in his life. He
had an experience not unlike that of Joseph. He writes about how a friend once took him to
a brothel, but how God protected him from sin. He was almost struck blind and dumb in this
den of vice, and the woman he was with lost patience with him and showed him to the door.
He felt great shame, but was grateful that God had saved him. He had other occasions when
God in mercy saved him from his own sinful self.
Here was a great leader of non-Christian people who could thank God for His providence
in his life, just as Pharaoh could. There is hardly a famous person in history who has not
experienced the providential hand of God in his or her life. Jeoffery Bocca in The
Adventurous Life Of Winston Churchill tells of how as a young soldier in South Africa
Churchill was on a train that was blown up and attacked with fierce fire power by the Boars
that the troops were cut to ribbons. He survived with just a slight wound in the hand, but he
was captured and taken a prisoner of war.
The prison camp in Pretoria was a nightmare, and he planned an escape with two other
men. As soon as he went over the wall the alarmed sounded and the other two could not
make it. He was alone on the outside without the maps and the compass the others had. He
made his way to the railroad station and leaped aboard a freight train. When he was discovered
missing the houses of British citizens were searched, and reward was offered for
him dead or alive. He had no idea where the train was going, and so he jumped off at dawn
and made his way through high grass and swamp until he was weak and exhausted. By
nightfall he came to a small community. He was starving and he knew he could not survive
without help. Someone passed in the darkness and Winston called out to him.
Bocca writing from the perspective of the secular mind describes what happened: "By a
stroke of the most unbelievable luck the man proved to be an Englishman, the only
Englishman in hundreds of miles. Winston, as he was led off to a hasty sanctuary, was told
that had he spoken to another human being he would have been arrested, as the whole
country was on the lookout for him. He was then left at the bottom of a mine with some food,
candles and a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped until means of transportation
could be devised."
He escaped and become England's first hero in the war. He went on to become one of
the greatest leaders in the 20th century. This is what we call the providence of God. If God
had not guided, he would have died in combat or in prison camp as an unknown 25 year old
soldier. It was the hand of God that lead him to his place in history.
The only problem with stories like this of Joseph, Gandhi, and Churchill is that we tend
to let the spectacular nature of them lead us to conclude that God's providence is only active
in the lives of the famous and powerful. This is not the case at all, for God by saving one and
leading them to places of power saved vast numbers. The one is unique, but God's
providence was not just for the one, but for the many. All the brothers and their families,
and all the millions of their unknown posterity were saved by the providence of God in
Joseph's life. Millions of lives were touched by Gandhi and Churchill as well. The purpose
of providence is not to bless the few, but to bless the many.
God's providence is universal. Jesus says that God makes the sun to shine and the rain to
fall even on the unjust and the rebellious pagan world. There is the reality of judgment as
well, but even the lost world is blest with food, clothing, and a host of material benefits by the
providential hand of God in history. It is a fallen world, but it is also a world that is greatly
blest with pleasures and joys because of the providence of God. This is the foundation for all
thankfulness, for if God did not care about man and get involved in history it would be hell
on earth for everyone.
God's goodness is manifest to all, and the result is that there is thankfulness to God even
in the non-Christian world. Do you think that only the Jews were grateful for Joseph's plan
to save the world from famine? Do you think only Christians in India were grateful for
Gandhi, or only Christians in England were grateful for Churchill? Every great thing God
does in history for the benefit of great numbers leads to non-believers being grateful as well
as believers. The non-believer often calls it luck, but many do acknowledge that God's hand
has guided, and they have a sense of gratitude to God, even if they are not a part of the
family of God by faith in Christ.
What we need to see is that the providence of God is an area of common ground for the
Christian and non-Christian. Anybody can be grateful for good things, and the world is full
of them. This is where you develop a relationship with a non-Christian. You find the
common ground of the things for which you are thankful, and then you witness to your faith
that this is not luck. The blessings you both enjoy are by the providence of God in history.
You explain that God loves the world and all peoples, and that He has blessed the world
abundantly. His greatest blessing being the gift of His Son for the forgiveness of sin and
eternal life. Every blessing in life is a pathway that leads right to Jesus, for every blessing in
life is a part of God's providence to lead us to Him.
The non-Christian world has the capacity for thankfulness. This is the universal virtue
that links all men, and we need to use it. Some have killed this virtue and they are blind to
God's goodness. That is what Paul says led the pagan world to such darkness and judgment
in Rom. 1. Their thinking became futile and they went blind in their hearts because they
ceased to give God thanks. When the virtue of thanksgiving is gone, you are dealing with a
person who is blind. But when it is still working, you have an ideal foundation for building a
relationship that can lead to salvation.
Paul says in Rom. 2:4 that the kindness of God is to lead people to repentance. If they
can see His providence in their lives, and how they are blest beyond what they deserve, and
they have tasted of His patience and tolerance, they can be brought by their sense of
thankfulness to receive God's greatest blessing in Christ. There is a tendency to take a
negative approach of convincing people they are terrible sinners, and in need of a savior.
But the Bible gives us a positive approach as well. Convince people they are blessed and
have much to be grateful for, and that they need to open themselves up for all that God has
for them, especially the salvation He has provided in His Son.
The providence of God in life is the best way to reach people for the kingdom of God.
Thanksgiving for anything can be your clue that a person can be lead by it to receive all that
God has provided for them. The providence of God is one aspect of theology where you can
get on common ground with almost anyone. There are literally thousands of books in both
the secular and Christian realm that deal with the providence of God.
Dr. Arthur Hewitt was addressing the Vermont Medical Association and he told of his
experience at age 7. His father was working on the barn and fell. He had a serious injury.
He ran to the neighbor a mile away and got the attention of the men thrashing. They got a
doctor and got his father to the hospital where a surgeon saved his father's life. He said, "I
would count it an honor to be received by the king of England, or the president of the United
States, but I would rather take the hand of John Wheeler who saved my father's life and the
happiness of my home for a quarter of a century." Suddenly everyone stood and applauded
and Dr. Hewitt was wondering why. A gray-haired old man rose and said, "Thank you sir. I
thank you." Dr. Hewitt was introduced to Dr. Wheeler for the first time. In the providence
of God these two men were in the same place at the same time so gratitude could be
communicated.
The most amazing story is reported by Doug Storer. Allen Falby was an El Paso county
highway patrolman who was chasing a speeding truck and he lost control and slammed into
the tail gate of the truck. He ruptured an artery in his leg and was bleeding to death. Alfred
Smith, a businessman who was driving home, saw the accident and stopped. He whipped off
his tie and tied it around the patrolman's leg and stopped the flow of blood to a trickle.
When the ambulance arrived he learned he had saved Allen's life. He was in the hospital for
several months, and after corrective surgery he eventually returned to his job.
Five years later around Christmas time Allen received a radio call to investigate an
accident on US 80 where a car had smashed into a tree. He reached the wreck and pulled the
unconscious driver out. He saw that he had severed an artery in his leg and was bleeding to
death. He quickly applied a tourniquet and made the man comfortable on the ground.
Only then he recognize the victim as Alfred Smith, the man who had saved his life 5 years
before. In the providence of God they had each been there for the other to save each others
lives. The patrolman was so grateful for the happy ending in both cases, and he said, "It all
goes to prove that one good tourniquet deserves another." Call it luck, or call it fate, but the
Bible calls it God's providence. God is saving people physically every moment of every day
by His providence.
We are to be thankful as Christians that God's providence goes beyond His care and
guidance for His own people. If God had not cared for the Egyptians as well as the Jews life
would not have been so good for God's people. Joseph told his brothers that you can forget
all your distress for being so evil. God in His providence has used even your folly for good.
The Egyptians are so pleased by God sending me here to save them also that they have
offered you the best land in Egypt to live in. The Egyptians were very thankful for Joseph
and his plan that enabled them to survive the famine. They bent over backwards to make life
good for Joseph and his family. God worked through thankful pagans to bless his people
with abundance and even luxury.
I wonder how often we recognize the blessings that God brings into our lives
providentially by means of non-Christians. Joseph's own family was a pain to him, but the
non-Hebrew world was full of people who helped him and gave him one blessing after
another. They finally exalted him to where he could fulfill the plan of God to save the known
world. You biggest blessings in life may not come through Christians at all. The doctor who
saves your life may be a non-believer. The man who stops to help you in a crisis may be won
who hold none of your beliefs that you hold dear.
One of the most famous doctors in the world is Dr. Viktor Frankel whose writings have
been a blessing to myself and millions of other Christians, but he is not a Christian. He is a
Jew whom God led to survive the concentration camp of Hitler, and he became a great
teacher about suffering. God's providence is seen in his life. Before World War II started
he was in Vienna where he was invited to come to the U. S. Embassy to get a visa for
immigration to America. He had a chance to escape, but he knew his parents would be taken
to a concentration camp, and he just did not know what to do.
As head of the Department of Neurology at the Jewish Hospital he had enough pull to
keep his parents from being arrested. If he left the country all would change. He longed for
what he called a hint from heaven. He went home and saw a piece of marble on the table. He
asked what it was and his father said that he found it at the sight of the synagogue which the
Nazi's had destroyed. "Why did you take it," he asked, and his father said, "It is part of the
tablet where the Ten Commandments were craved. There is one Hebrew letter on it which
abbreviates one of the commandments." Everyday he asked his father which one it was. His
father's answer was that it was the commandment to honor thy father and mother. Viktor
right then decided to forget his visa and stay with his parents. He paid a heavy price and saw
countless numbers die in the camps, but God spared him and made him a blessing through
his writings to people all over the world.
When you thank God for His providential blessings, remember they come to you from
every direction, and from sources you would never dream. Your physical life, pleasures,
success, and joys often come to you by God's providence through many peoples and nations.
Your goal is to be a blessing in turn to every nation. As Christians we are to be tools for
God's fulfilling of His promise to Abraham to bless every person in the world. This is the
game of life, and every day we should say somewhere along the way-thank God He let me
play.
