Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

 

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”–2 Corinthians 9:15 (NKJ)

 

Imagine that you’re on the Florida coast. The sun is setting like a gigantic orange ball as the water laps at the shore. The gentle breeze makes for a cool evening on the isolated stretch of beach. You look up and see an old man hobbling down the beach with a bucket. He walks to the old pier that stretches out in the water and looks up into the sky. A mass of dancing dots draws closer. The sea gulls are coming! The man takes handfuls of shrimp out of  his bucket and throws them on the dock. The sea gulls  land all around him—some even perch on his shoulders, others on his hat. His feathered friends linger long after the shrimp are gone.

 

What’s going on here? Why does this man feed the sea gulls week after week? The man in that scene was Eddie Rickenbacher, a famous WWII pilot. His plane, The Flying Fortress, went down in 1942 and nobody thought he’d be rescued. Perhaps you’ve heard how he and his eight passengers escaped death by climbing into two rafts for thirty days. They fought extreme thirst, heat, even sharks as long as nine feet. But what nearly killed them first was starvation. Their scant rations were totally gone within eight days.

 

Rickenbacher wrote that even on those rafts they would have an afternoon prayer and devotional time every day. After this time one day, Rickenbacher leaned back and put his hat over his eyes and tried to get some sleep.  Within a few moments he felt something on his head. He knew in an instant it was a sea gull. How it got there—hundreds of  miles out to sea—he didn’t know. But he was certain that if he didn’t get that sea gull he would die. Soon the others noticed the bird. No one spoke, no one moved. Rickenbacher quickly grabbed the sea gull. They ate the flesh of that bird with much thanksgiving. They used its intestines for fish bait and managed to survive.

 

Rickenbacher never forgot that visitor, that sacrificial guest from a far away place. Every week he went out on the pier with a full bucket of shrimp and said thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

For Discussion: In your own words, together relate this story to the sacrifice of Jesus for us. Then, talk about how Rickenbacher’s grateful response should be like ours. How can and will you say“thank you, thank you, thank you” to God?!