In this week of Thanksgiving, let’s give thanks to God.
We don’t normally put our lives in historical perspective, but the average person in the United States today has a quality of life superior to that of even royalty as recently as 100 years ago. We have better food and nutrition, better entertainment, better medical treatment, better transportation, and on and on. Personally, I’m not willing to give up modern dentistry.
Compared to earlier generations, we are incredibly spoiled and easily annoyed. We drive around in our modern cars, with radios and GPS and heated seats, and get annoyed if we get delayed in traffic. We complain if our restaurant meal is not hot enough or exactly what we ordered. We get enormous benefits from our society and government yet love to complain about taxes. Consider that, for almost all of human history, when the sun went down, there wasn’t a lot to see. Average life expectancy in the Bronze and Iron ages was 26. In medieval England, even if you made it to age 21, and even if you were a member of the aristocracy, you could only expect to live to age 64.
So let’s be thankful for what we have. Let’s also be thankful for a universe that reveals evidence of a Creator in so many ways, such as the fine-tuning of the constants of nature, the origin of life, and the creation of new species. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
Thanks for reading.