Thank Your Heavenly King

On Monday my son had a small accident doing mountain biking, and the base of his thumb was very swollen and painful. He thought you might have broken it, and so I took him in to InstaCare to get it looked at. I could tell that the worst possible scenario was playing out in his mind as he realized his season would be over if it really was broken. As we sat there in the doctor’s office, I was praying in my mind that it would not be broken and that he would be okay to ride soon. I was very grateful and relieved to find out that everything looked good on the x-ray and that he just needed a few days to let it heal. As I thought about this, I was reminded that I need to take the time every day to give thanks to Him for His help that He provides in our life. Recently in the Come, Follow Me lessons we have been reading in the book of Psalms, and one of the themes we see there is to praise the Lord for His goodness. One passage reads this way, “Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul…. But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me” (Psalm 66:16, 19-20). Another passage reads this way, “For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee” (Psalm 86:5). I know that God is indeed “plenteous in mercy” to us as we call on Him in prayer. Though there will indeed always be things in life that don’t seem to go right and which frustrate us, but as we learn to call on Him and recognize His hand blessing us, we will be much happier. Another psalm says this, “I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings” (Psalm 77:11-12). That is one of the most important things we can do in mortality—to learn to recognize and remember what the Lord has done for us.

               My son's minor accident and healing this week reminds me of a talk in general conference that President Nelson gave about gratitude to God. He tried to help us see some of the things that we should be grateful for. He said, “When you sing ‘I Am a Child of God,’ think of His gift to you of your own physical body. The many amazing attributes of your body attest to your own ‘divine nature.’… Each organ of your body is a wondrous gift from God. Each eye has an autofocusing lens…. Your heart is an incredible pump. It has four delicate valves that control the direction of blood flow. These valves open and close more than 100,000 times a day—36 million times a year…. Think of the body’s defense system. To protect it from harm, it perceives pain. In response to infection, it generates antibodies. The skin provides protection. It warns against injury that excessive heat or cold might cause.” As a medical doctor, he was aware of the incredible complexity of our physical bodies and the miracle they are. He also spoke of the amazing ability for our bodies to heal themselves: “The body renews its own outdated cells and regulates the levels of its own vital ingredients. The body heals its cuts, bruises, and broken bones. Its capacity for reproduction is another sacred gift from God…. Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask yourself, ‘Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?’ The likelihood is most remote. But if so, it could never heal its own torn pages or reproduce its own newer editions!” This week my son experienced that first hand as he was healed from his injury—within less than a week he no longer had any pain. His body healed itself and he was able to use his hand normally that he had originally been afraid was broken. We should take more time to thank our Father in Heaven for the great blessing of our bodies and for the incredible gifts He has given us.

King Benjamin reminded us of what the Lord has done for us after he recounted some of the things he had done for his people as their king: “And behold also, if I, whom ye call your king, who has spent his days in your service, and yet has been in the service of God, do merit any thanks from you, O how you ought to thank your heavenly King! I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants” (Mosiah 2:19-21). These words remind us indeed that we ought to thank our heavenly King who has created us and given us our bodies and these mortal experiences on earth.