Sergeant Vernon W. Entrekin relates how he recited the 145th Psalm while dangling by his left foot from a parachute after bailing out of a C-47 transport plane during a swirling snowstorm. Entrekin was one of six aboard the plane when the pilot lost control above Dwight, Nebraska. It was his first parachute leap. He had been reading the 145th Psalm just before starting out on the flight. He found himself saying: “The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down… The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.”

Entrekin asked for strength to climb back into the parachute harness which he had failed to fasten securely. Gasping for breath in the icy air, and summoning the last ounce of his energy, he doubled his body, and caught hold of the harness above his foot. Slowly he was able to climb back to a sitting position while dropping swiftly through the air. Finally he landed with a jolt and unbuckled his parachute harness.

“Thank you, Lord,” he said.

And who wouldn’t be thankful under those circumstances?

Still God has called us to be thankful all the time: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thessalonians 5:18).

Our circumstances would make millions thankful. Food enough to survive should call forth as much thanksgiving in this good land as in one where many die of starvation.

Be thankful… continually.