Oatmeal and Un-thankfulness:

Originally, I wrote this for Thanksgiving 2016. As I read over it, it seemed to fit our 2020 times even more closely: Blame my wife for this one--she had oatmeal for breakfast. I saw a study once that concluded people who ate oatmeal for breakfast developed cancer at a far greater rate than those who never ate oatmeal. Wait, before you trash the Quaker, oatmeal doesn’t cause cancer. The explanatory missing fact is that most people who eat oatmeal for breakfast are elderly folk who for other reasons develop cancer at a greater rate (not that my wife is elderly.). This illustrates that some things are correlative and not causal. There is no connection between cancer and oatmeal; it doesn’t cause cancer (causal). It is just that the demographic group that most frequently gets cancer also happens to eat a lot of oatmeal (correlative). In Romans 1, when Paul describes reprobate humanity that had once known God but had become worshippers of creation, idolaters, homosexuals, adulterers, thieves, murderers, etc., he prefaces what they had become with this: “when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful;” I had always taken “neither were thankful” as correlative (a descriptive trait of a reprobate) instead of causal (a contributive factor in his becoming a reprobate). Now, I’m not so sure. Can it be that being unthankful actually causes one to become sinful, evil, dark, and even perverted? Think about it: If people were truly thankful, would there be sin in our world? If Eve had been thankful that God had given her a garden full of trees including the Tree of Life from which to eat, would she had ever eaten of the forbidden tree? If David had been thankful for all the family, fortune, and fame God had given him, would he have ever committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband? If Judas had been thankful Jesus had chosen him as one of the Twelve, would he have ever betrayed Him? If Demas had been thankful he had heard the Gospel, would he have ever forsaken it for love of this present evil world? If the violent protesters in the inner cities were thankful for the service of policemen who protect them day and night, there would be no burning, looting, and killing cops. If the students were thankful for the republic in which they live, there would be no complaining, crying, and maligning the very system that allows them to protest. If society were thankful for the gift of life, there would be no advocating for abortion. If the leftists were thankful for the founding fathers and their giving us the best government and most blessed nation ever in history, there would be no complaining, revising, and trying to destroy the fabric of America. If the media were thankful for the freedom of the press, there would be no using it to distort, lie, malign, and promote misconceptions of reality. If believers were thankful for the freedom to worship, there would be no missing services, half-hearted worship, lack of joyful praise. If believers were thankful that Jesus had included them in the church, there would be no complaining about the church. If believers were thankful for having heard the truth, there would be no abandoning what they had been taught for the deceptive philosophies of the world. If believers were thankful Jesus had died to set them free, there would be no worldliness, love of carnal pleasures. If men were thankful for their wives, there would be no looking at pornography, adultery, or wife-abuse. If wives were thankful for their husbands, there would be no haranguing their husbands. If children were thankful for their parents, there would be no disobedience or disrespect. If parents were thankful for their children, there would be no abuse or neglect. If I am thankful Jesus gave His life for me, there will be no complaining of how hard it is to serve Him. If I am thankful God specially created me and has a plan for my life, there will be no living only for myself and letting Satan have his way with me. I am certain there will be no evil, sin or darkness in heaven. I am also certain that there will not be one unthankful person in all of heaven. You can say the connection is correlative. I say it just might be causal.