In this series we are reprinting Spokesman articles by early leaders in the CLC. Pastor Emeritus James Albrecht is the curator of the series. Rev. Gilbert A. Sydow (1914-1988) was involved in the organization of the CLC. He served pastorates in Ellensburg and Lynnwood, Washington; and New Ulm, Minnesota. He also served on the CLC Boards of Doctrine and Regents. This article is from the Lutheran Spokesman of August 1988. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.
Luther tells us something special about a Christian when he says in his explanation to the Fourth Petition that we are “to receive with thanksgiving our daily bread.” This sets us apart from “the wicked,” the unbelieving who also receive daily bread from a gracious God but do so without acknowledgment or gratitude. A story is told of a small boy who noticed that at his friend’s home there was prayer at mealtime, and remarked, “We don’t pray at our house.” His friend answered, “Neither do the hogs at our house.” It was a distinguishing feature of man at creation that He was made with the ability to understand his relationship to and dependence upon God and could express it in worship. This set him above the beast. And in the “saving of that which was lost” it remains a distinctive mark of the child of God. “The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6) sets us straight also on this.
This none of us question. But there is much about us that can weaken and destroy what this means. The insidious influence of those devilish “isms” which surround us—materialism, naturalism, evolutionism—tends to make a prayerful attitude of thanksgiving something less than the “Christian’s vital breath.” A haphazard, chancy, falling together of things in nature leaves no place for a creating and providential God. That is why there can be no thanksgiving where evolutionary philosophy rules and is accepted, and why a “Thanksgiving Day” is meaningless, really an impossibility, to so much of our nation. The Christian always has to remind himself and meditate continually on the depth of the providential care of God—how all-inclusive and encompassing it is. The Psalmist understood. He brought it down to his daily living when he said, “Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)
But having come even to this full realization does not take care of all that might profane our thanksgiving. Repeatedly our Lord tells us that under His providential care we are to take “no thought for the morrow,” (Matthew 6:34) not to worry, and we are to “be content with such things as ye have.” (Hebrews 13:5) Are we aware that there is much pressure on us to do just the opposite? An advertising man once said that the purpose of his work was “to make people dissatisfied with what they have.” Who wouldn’t grant that the clever and colorful advertising with which we are bombarded tends to do just that?
We cannot make ungodly the effort to improve our material situation in life, but we do have to take care lest these efforts are accompanied with sneaking bits of worry and discontent, and our “Now thank we all our God” is marred with fretting and dissatisfaction. But then it is asked, “Who, even among Christians, is completely free of this?” Indeed, no one! But that, of course, does not change what the Lord expects. Here again we see “how frail” we are and our crying need of the forgiveness of sin. Then prayer is pressed upon us, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) Make my thanksgiving pure!
: 1914-1988