Give Credit Where Credit is Due

My brother-in-law, Ray, was diagnosed with a larger cancerous mass in his esophagus and stomach. He had some chemo and the doctors attempted surgery, but they stopped during the procedure because of liver complications. Ray reached out in all directions for treatment and cure. He started coming to church and the elders prayed over him, he went to an acupuncturist who put him on a vegan diet, where he lost 60 pounds, and he traveled to Arizona for a second opinion. The recent scope of his esophagus showed no signs of the mass and the PET showed only one lymph node to have cancer. Ray is being inclusive in his thanksgiving saying that whether it is God, the diet, the acupuncture doctor, or all of our prayers, he is rejoicing. There are times that we’ve all struggled with giving credit where credit is due. Even in Paul’s day, some who were very religious were careful to cover all their bases so as not to offend any god or object of worship. “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:23 NIV)