By Steve Higginbotham
About five years ago, I was asked to conduct a seminar for a congregation in Huntsville, Alabama. Just a few minutes after my arrival at the church building that Sunday afternoon, a man entered the office in which I was sitting and pointed a gun at a fellow preacher and myself, demanding all our money. After the man took our money, he stood in the doorway with the gun pointing at us and said, “I’m sorry I have to do this.” At that moment, I thought we were about to be shot, but instead, he turned and ran from the building.
I remember having two distinct thoughts as we stood stunned in the moments that followed.
The first thought was that I was so thankful I had not brought my family with me that day. I had debated on whether to do this or not, and decided not to bring them at the last minute. I would have hated for my children and my wife to have had to experience such an event.
My second thought was not born out of my own noble spiritual priorities, but simply a remembrance of what I had once read that another man said when he was robbed. Matthew Henry, the well-known Bible commentator was once robbed, and in his daily journal, as he reflected upon being robbed, he wrote:
Let me be thankful. First, that I was never robbed before. Second, although they took my purse, they didn’t take my life. Third, although they took my all, it was not much. Fourth, let me be thankful because it was I who was robbed and not I who did the robbing.
As we approach Thanksgiving, we need to be mindful of all the many reasons for which we have to give thanks. Friends, if you can’t find something for which to be thankful, you’re just not looking hard enough. Remember Matthew Henry. If he could find reason to give thanks while being robbed, certainly we can find reasons to give thanks amidst our circumstances as well.