Commentary: Thankful for God’s faithfulness

Chip Hutcheson

With each passing year, I found more things that I could and should thank the Lord for in my life.”

Saying thanks never grows old.

For well over 30 years, I wrote a Thanksgiving column in my newspaper, and it was one that was immensely rewarding to me personally because it prompted me to stop and count my blessings.

With each passing year, I found more things that I could and should thank the Lord for in my life. That continues to this day.

On Monday, my phone displayed the name of a man I hadn’t seen or talked with in well over seven years. Calling to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving was Jerry Reppert, a long-time owner of multiple Illinois newspapers. We met in the early 2000s through the National Newspaper Association. When he was elected its president, he asked me to serve on the NNA board, and for two decades we exchanged ideas, laughs, and challenges facing our industry.

That prompted me to call long-time friend Robert Williams, a newspaper publisher in Blackshear, Ga., who is in a cancer battle. We developed a strong friendship through our work in the newspaper industry, and both of us still write a monthly article in NNA’s trade publication.

Thank you, Lord, for good friends — and even though we may not talk with each other for years, the friendship never wanes.

Those two calls led me to think of all the friendships created in Kentucky Baptist life. My life was never the same after being elected — as a layman in 2013 — president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

I am so thankful for all the faithful Kentucky Baptists who have crossed my path since that time. I am thankful for the passion that Kentucky Baptists have in proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. And I’m thankful to be privileged to chronicle in Kentucky Today the ways that Kentucky Baptists are serving the Lord so faithfully.

I cannot begin to praise the Lord enough for his call on my life at age 68 to leave the newspaper business and surrender to the ministry.

Then came a call from KBC in early 2019, asking me if I would move to Louisville and be the editor of the Western Recorder. That resulted in blessings too numerous to count and I formed friendships with pastors and church folks from Pikeville to Paducah and Covington to Clinton.

I’m thankful for my wife, who did not hesitate to make the move to Louisville. Like me, she immediately sensed the Lord calling us to leave our home of 43 years to serve the Lord in another place and another way.

In a recent blog post, Alistair Begg pointed out the biblical admonition that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. He wrote, “Thanksgiving is not always easy,” noting that some face our loneliest days, others are overwhelmed by a loved one wandering from the gospel, and others are disappointed because of a lost job or broken relationship. But in those times, we take hold of the admonition in 1 Thess. 5:18 to give thanks in everything.

Let’s be honest — feeling thankful is not always easy. But God enables us to be grateful when, during difficult times, we grasp the reality that “great is thy faithfulness.”

And for that faithfulness, I am truly thankful.

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