A Good Word: THANKS is life GIVING

THANKS is life GIVING

by Travis Keener

In 2004, my brother saw a doctor in Oklahoma City for occasional shortness of breath and was told he needed a heart and lung transplant just to help him live five more years. He was 28 at the time. He took the doctors’ suggested medicine, but he refused to consider a transplant. Instead, while living on the equivalent of 25% of one lung’s capacity, he built a new home, partnered on a big boat, and continued to run his company even while his health continued to decline.

Dad cried four years straight. Mom cried once, in the fourth year, after she dreamed her son’s ashes were poured out of an urn right in front of her. My aunt heard the dream and said, “I don’t know what it means, but it doesn’t mean what you think.” That statement helped block fear from paralyzing my family.

Churches here and miles away prayed diligently. We asked the Holy Spirit (pneuma breath and power) to fill his lungs. I called him around mid-2008, assuming he was aware of the upcoming five-year mark on the calendar. I wanted him to know I was still praying and believing, but when I mentioned the five years, I realized he had blocked out the doctor’s timeline. I deeply regretted bringing up something that could affect his faith.

I didn’t need to worry; he had been having a new type of conversation with the Great Physician. He told me, “I’ve asked God so many times to heal me, now I’ve decided to quit asking and start thanking Him for what I already have. I’m not bedfast. I can still run my business ... He seems to anoint me to work.” I was in awe. I reminded him of a handwritten card I sent him two or so years before. Psalms 50:23, essentially claims, “he who offers a sacrifice of thanks truly honors Me and I will show him the pathway of salvation.”

About the time the sacrifice of thanks began, doctors saw improvement in his heart pressure and size. Within a couple of years, he was married. Now he has plenty of breath to keep up with his two precious children and use the elliptical 30 minutes a day. No surgery — just Thanksgiving! During that time, our extended family started a Thanksgiving tradition each November. Everyone shared thanks and prayer requests. We type the list and send everyone home with a copy. Many prayers were answered beyond our expectation. The Bible says Daniel prayed and gave thanks 3x daily. And it says God answers prayers before we pray. But it doesn’t say He will thank Himself on our behalf if we fail to — it’s a sacrifice we offer to Him.

Neurological science supports this Biblical principle — it’s impossible for our brain to be fearful and thankful at the same time.

In closing, I hope this image will mean something to you. Recently I had a half-awake dream where the devil’s servant was holding several blueprints individually rolled up under his arm.

Each blueprint was for a specific person’s destruction. Suddenly flaming arrows shot into the blueprints. The enemy managers decided it was too costly and time consuming to recreate the designs, so they moved on to other projects. I pray thanksgiving from your lips will be used to thwart the enemy’s plans. After these many years, my mom’s dream seems to have insightfully revealed the end of a trial, not the end of a life. The vessel she saw poured out was to be filled with thanksgiving.