Eyes on God, Thankfulness in Our Hearts
33 As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing.
34 Therefore I urge you to take some food. For it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you.”
35 And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat.
36 Then they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves.
37 (We were in all 276 persons in the ship.)
38 And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea.
If you thought they were desperate before, get ready. They have been trying to ration their food and stay afloat through 14 days of non-stop storms. Now Paul tells them all to eat up. They are going to need to have some energy.
This is also the last stop before they all get really wet and lose everything.
Do you ever find it hard to be thankful? If being thankful is something that depends on your circumstances, you might. It kind of seems like thanking God for something would have to be connected to our circumstances, wouldn’t it?
I’m not talking about being in a state of gratitude or ‘practicing gratefulness.’ Those are disembodied concepts or states of mind championed by other religions. I want to focus on “giving thanks to God” as it says Paul did.
Giving thanks to God recognizes that He is the source of all life. Giving thanks to God is a declaration that I’m not just happy that I have whatever I’m thankful for, but God Himself, who loves me so much, is responsible for this thing.
Even in a sinking boat surrounded by criminals, God has brought Paul this far. God has used Paul in so many ways. God has provided some food on this boat in the middle of nowhere. Paul gets to eat it before a big mysterious swim.
They were all encouraged by Paul’s words and actions.
Remember when the woman at the well left her water jug behind and ran to town to tell all of the Samaritans about Jesus? The whole point of her going to the well was to get water and now she found something better.
These sailors had been making their decisions based on selling that wheat for a prime rate. The whole purpose of the voyage was to deliver that wheat to Rome in the wintertime when Caesar would pay a premium and recompense them for any damage to their ship and crew.
When they dumped the grain, it was either because they had lost all hope and thought it was worthless, or because they had put their hope in the words of Paul. It says they did it to “lighten the ship” which would be in keeping with the plan he told them. They can’t run very far into the shore with a heavy boat, but with a lighter load, they can make it closer to shore just like they told him.
Sometimes being thankful to God comes before the change in circumstances. We don’t know it, but at least we get to walk in fellowship and thankfulness until the rough situation changes.
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