Thanksgiving Essays
This site annually hosts essay contests in November/December entitled "Why I am personally grateful to God." The essay was to be written including reasons why the author was grateful to God and how He has helped him in his life. Entries were selected on the basis of how they gave glory to God.
| 2001 Essay |
| No Entry Received |
| 2000 Essay |
| There is one real reason I am grateful to God. It is that
I am able to sit here today and type this. My answer is very simple
here. The basic fact that I am able to convey my emotions, and that I
have emotions which I can share is a miracle in itself. Before, when I
was doubting God and Christianity, I had no direction, no reason. Now I
do. I know that everything that happens to me, good or bad, has meaning.
Through my mistakes and talents, pain and happiness, I have learned more
about myself and the world than I ever would have without God. Without
God, nothing kept me from being unfaithful, nothing moved me. Without
God, I became very apathetic and undriven. Now, I am criticized for my
beliefs. I attend school in the engineering department of a university
and few of the students are religious. Often I have a hard time
justifying myself to these people. This has only makes me stronger,
because I am logical myself yet I still have strong faith and emotion
when it comes to my religion. To turn around an individual like myself,
God deserves praise. God deserves praise for allowing me the ability to
convey my beliefs through science. God gave us the ability to find the
truth, to answer questions. God gave us wonderful emotions all for free.
My understanding of God has not only made me more faithful but a better
person in general. But this understanding is only possible by God!
Without God, nothing is possible, but with God, so much is possible, and
I have witnessed this first hand by accepting Christ simply by my own
investigation and questioning, not by force from parents, etc.
Adam |
| 1999 Essay |
| I am personally grateful to God, because I was uncertain in
the path that I had chosen in life. Just under a year ago, I tried to
commit suicide; However, I was unsuccessful, even though I had very high
and dangerous levels of poison in my body. I took this as a sign from God
to change my ways and better myself. A second chance if you will. I'm am
very grateful for this "second chance" that he has given me. I
have used it in a productive way, I went on to graduate high school with
my class, and I am now attending college and maintaining a 3.33 GPA as a
true freshman with 17 credits, while being an active member of the track
and field team. I have become an active member of a local Christian church
that is here near my college campus. I am serving God in any way that I
can through my newly found church, and I feel that he has shown me my true
friends, and how I would have hurt them if I would have accomplished my
horrendous act. Every morning I wake up grateful that I am alive and well,
thanks to God and the second chance that he has given to me.
Joe |
Reflections
We are what we think.
- 09/15/2020 12:00 PM
What Was Your Intellectual Epiphany?
Have you ever had a sudden realization that ended up changing your life? You may have had an epiphany, which can be defined as an intuitive flash of insight or discovery as to the deep meaning of something significant that comes through experience and leads to a sense of wonder. Over the years I have experienced some significant spiritual and intellectual turning points.…
() - 09/01/2020 03:54 PM
My Early Baptism and Spiritual Development
When does God’s saving grace begin working in a person’s life? Is it at the moment the person decides to believe in Christ? Or can God’s saving grace be operative prior to a person believing? Could that saving grace even begin at a young child’s baptism? Church traditions within Christendom differ over the practice of baptism. Those differences extend to…
() - 08/18/2020 12:00 PM
Does Possessing Freedom Presuppose the Will to Fight?
What do you think about when you hear the word war? You probably think of armed conflict, bloodshed, and death—and lots of it. That is the nature of warfare. It’s also why war presents one of the most challenging issues to address from an ethical standpoint. Given this difficulty, most Christians have adopted just war theory, which requires engaging only in just wars and…
() - 08/04/2020 12:00 PM
3 Things You May Not Know about John Calvin the Person
French-born theologian John Calvin (1509–1564) was one of the great voices of the Protestant Reformation. He is often called the greatest systematic theologian of the Reformation and is the most influential figure in the entire Reformed theological tradition. His monumental book Institutes of the Christian Religion has been called one of the ten books that shook the world. Yet Calvin is also considered one of the…
() - 07/21/2020 12:00 PM
Snapshot of Today’s Intellectual Climate
The extraordinary events of 2020 have left many people wondering if we are living in a new era. Times of change and conflict like this often provoke people to ask philosophical questions. So, as we consider this present time in which we live, I would invite you to consider two probing questions: If our time is indeed distinct, how would…
() - 07/07/2020 12:00 PM
Does a Religion’s Rapid Growth Mean It’s True?
Many religions claim high growth rates that are not merely due to population increases. If a religion acquires a large number of followers, does that growth count in favor of its truth claims? Christianity experienced rapid growth in its early period but so have many religions, including Islam and Mormonism. Is Christianity unique, and if so, how? Fast-Growing Religions and Their Causes Historically, Islam and Mormonism (Latter-day…
() - 06/23/2020 12:00 PM
How Does Islam Differ from Christianity?
According to Pew Research, if current trends continue then by 2050 there will be nine billion people living on the planet. Approximately three billion will be Christians, three billion will be Muslims, and three billion others will represent various beliefs (both religious and secular).1 Since Christianity and Islam are the two largest (comprising about 55% of the world’s population2) religions in the world people…
() - 06/09/2020 12:00 PM
What Happens to Those Who Never Hear the Gospel?
What happens to people who never hear the gospel message about Jesus Christ? This vexing question has challenged Christians for centuries, but recently a skeptic raised this inquiry with me. After all, if God is loving and good, how will he adjudicate the destiny of so many people who will never get a chance to hear the way out of their predicament? Christian theology has offered four answers to…
() - 05/26/2020 12:00 PM
How the Trinity Shows God’s Love
Arguably one of the most important teachings in the Bible is the proclamation that “God is love,” which is found in verses like 1 John 4:8 and 16. This brief, powerful statement is laden with theological implications. I’ve also found it helpful when discussing how God loves people with those who hold non-Christian, yet theistic conceptions of God (God as a single, solitary person and being). Because…
() - 05/12/2020 12:00 PM
My Soul Is Like a House
One of the things I like about the writings of the Christian church father St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) is his rich use of analogies1 in talking about critical theological topics. An analogy, of course, is a comparison between two things (how they are like and unlike), usually for the purpose of providing explanation. In his most popular work, Confessions,2 Augustine compares the human soul to a house…
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Last updated November 25, 2001
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