Thanks through Service

It was gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The seagulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket.

Many years before, in October, 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.

Somewhere over the South Pacific, the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men abandoned their plane for the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts.

But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable—starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred. As Captain Rickenbacker said, "Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a seagull. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food if I could catch it."

Captain Eddie caught the gull. They consumed most of it, and the rest was used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone seagull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, became a sacrifice.

Captain Eddy never forgot, because every Friday evening, about sunset, he would visit that pier to remember the seagull, which on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle. This man was thankful for what that seagull had done for him. To show his thanks, he served those seagulls by bringing them food. If that man was willing to commit the rest of his life to feeding the seagulls, how much more should we commit our lives to Christ? How much more should we serve Him? After all, He saved us not just from an earthly death, but from an eternal death!

Source: Dailyintheword.org, November 13, 2007