Will Vaus

Helen Hayes, though she was a great actress, was not a great cook. So on Thanksgiving Day her family would traditionally go out for dinner. Finally, after many years, her family decided that they would give Thanksgiving dinner at home a try. The day having arrived, Helen told her husband and son, “Now, I’ve cooked a turkey for the first time and I’m going to bring it to the table. If it’s not good, I don’t want anyone to say a word. We’ll just quietly get up from the table, and without any negative comments, we’ll just go to a restaurant and have a Thanksgiving meal there.” So Helen went into the kitchen to get the turkey. When she came back out to the dining room, her husband and her son were both sitting at the table with their hats and coats on. Giving thanks isn’t always easy, even on Thanksgiving Day. Perhaps that is why the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica, penned these words of encouragement: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Chris...

I have a confession to make… I am not much of a gardener. In fact, I am not a gardener at all. One of the only times I have ever done any kind of extensive planting of seeds is when we had a house built in a new neighborhood in South Carolina. Part of the package in purchasing the house was landscaping for the front of the house, including beautiful green sod. However, no landscaping for the back yard came with the package. Thus, we had to do it all ourselves. When we moved in, the back yard was perfectly raked and graded. It was a beautiful patch of level dirt. My plan was to plant grass seed. I thought, “How hard can it be?” Unfortunately, I waited a while before I got to work, and the rains came, and that beautiful, level lot that was our back yard, started to slope downhill. I thought, “I better get to work soon.” So as soon as the rains stopped, I bought some grass seed and got to work. I followed all the directions, scattering the seed, and then covering it all with st...

What is the one possession you value most? Is it your house, your car, a pet? Is it a photo album or scrapbook that carries your memories? Whatever this most favored possession is, how does it compare with the way you value your life? I imagine you would give away every possession you have before you would give away your life? Yet, that is exactly what God calls upon us to do. He wants us to give our lives away. It is precisely in giving our lives away that we discover what real living is all about. Jesus said, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:24) Last Sunday we considered how we can give ourselves away by giving of our time. Today I invite you to consider how you can give yourself away by giving of your talents, those unique abilities with which you have been endowed by God. Paul addresses this topic in Romans 12:3-8. Listen for God’s word to you from this passage…. For by the grace given to me I sa...