“As you know, this has been a difficult year for our city,” the letter began. “We have all had to make sacrifices we never thought we would be faced with, which has brought me to this difficult decision my family and I have had to make.”

The letter from our family doctor continues, “I regrettably have to inform you that as of December 29, 2006 I will be leaving my practice and moving to Houston, Texas.”

Dr. Irma Pfister is an excellent young doctor who was recommended to us by our E-N-T doctor and has treated both Margaret and me for the past couple of years. My other internist–I’m at the age where we have lots of medical people in our lives–Dr. Kathleen Wilson, moved to Florida earlier this year. Same kind of letter, same reasons.

It’s like an epidemic around here, doctors moving out. Perhaps they have lost so many clients and with a smaller population base, they are unable to earn the kind of income they need. Just as likely, it’s a matter of not wanting to live in such a depressing environment, particularly when a partnership is available in a modern, clean, progressive city where the issues facing New Orleans are all left behind.

We understand, but it truly hurts.

I bumped into a seminary classmate today on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where he and I sat through three years of classes together in the mid-1960s. We exchanged pleasantries and chatted about the challenge we’re facing in this city, with the rebuilding of our neighborhoods and churches. My friend is president of one of our Southern Baptist seminaries and as prominent a personage as our denomination has. As we parted, he said, “I almost envy you.”

Almost. Not quite, I imagine.

Last Sunday, the Loving Four Baptist Church, one of our African-American congregations severely hurt by Katrina, met in their rebuilt sanctuary for the first time since August, 2005. Freddie Arnold attended, representing us, and reports that their building was packed out and the service was wonderful. Matthew Tanner is the pastor.

Tuesday morning as I entered our associational office, I noticed a bronze plaque laying on the desk. It was beautiful and classy, a thank-you from the Loving Four Church, lettered not just to the association but also to me. I was surprised and honored. I would hate for anyone to know how little I have directly done to assist that precious congregation. But I think I know why they did it.

Sometimes you just feel you need to thank someone. So the churches look at Freddie and me and thank us for all the help Southern Baptists have sent their way. Freddie and I, well, we turn to our state convention leadership–Dr. David Hankins, Mike Canady, and Gibbie McMillan in particular–and thank them. We thank leaders of the various state conventions around the country and our North American Mission Board, and would you believe it, they thank us for the privilege of coming to New Orleans to help. It’s surreal.

Samuel Shoemaker was a popular Episcopalian priest a generation ago. His printed sermons were published in several books which all became best-sellers. In one sermon, he tells of a high-powered businessman who sometimes attended his church with his wife who was a member. When Sam tried to speak to him about his relationship to Christ, he was gently but firmly put in his place. “I have no time for those things. I cannot honestly say that I believe in this God of whom you speak,” he told the preacher. “My wife handles the religion in the family.” When the man came down with cancer, Shoemaker mobilized the congregation to pray for him. He came through all the treatments and was pronounced cured.

Late one night, there was a knock at the Shoemakers’ home. As Sam opened the door, he was surprised to find the businessman standing there. The man said, “Pastor, I just felt I need to thank someone.” Sam invited him in, and that night prayed with him to invite Jesus Christ into his life.

I feel like I need to thank someone. Know the feeling?

Interestingly, Scripture gives few instances of believers thanking other believers. What they do is thank the Lord for what the other person did.

Here are four examples from the epistles of Paul.

“I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” (Romans 1:8)

“Thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus.” (II Cor. 8:16)

“What thanks can we render to God in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your behalf?” (I Thess. 3:9)

“I thank God…as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day.” (II Tim. 1:3)

The point being, obviously, that God is the source of the blessings Paul is receiving from others. Therefore, rather than simply thanking them, He goes straight to the Throne and thanks the Father for what He has done through them. In so doing, he is paying the believers the highest compliment, saying that they are obeying the Father.

One of the reasons that is an excellent way to give thanks is because in our situation, it’s the only way to make certain everyone gets thanked. We have no clue who has been to this city and worked, who has given money that was sent our way, and certainly not an inkling of who has prayed for us. So, we give thanks to the Father for all who have loved us and have demonstrated that love in work, gifts, and prayers.

I honestly don’t have a clue what to do with that plaque. Earlier this year, Good Shepherd (El Buen Pastor) Church gave me one, and it’s been riding in the trunk of my car ever since. Mount them on your wall and they look like you’re bragging. Hide them in a drawer and it appears you don’t appreciate them.

A couple of years before leaving my last pastorate, I pulled a dozen plaques out of cabinets and threw them away. They were impressive wall plaques from colleges, seminary, an Air Force base, and several churches and denominational boards. “I’m saving my children the trouble of having to decide what to do with these things after I’m gone,” I told Janie my secretary. Since then, I have amassed a half dozen more.

People feel the need to say ‘thank you.’

Thank God for that instinct. It’s one of the most attractive traits of people, just as ingratitude is one of the ugliest.

“In the last days,” Paul writes to Timothy, “difficult times will come.” People will be lovers of self, of pleasure, of money, they will be arrogant, brutal, and so on. Right in the middle of 19 despicable qualities, Paul plants this one: “ungrateful.” It surely belongs there among the defining traits of a lost people. (II Timothy 3)

On the other hand, check the four gospels and notice how many times people who were transformed by the touch of Christ broke out in praise and thanksgiving.

To switch gears for a moment….

Over 15 months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has appointed a director of recovery for the city. Dr. Edward J. Blakely is a veteran professor and currently the chairman of urban and regional planning at the University of Sydney, Australia. “Everyone should be allowed to rebuild,” he said recently, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone should be allowed to rebuild in exactly the same place they built before.”

It will be interesting to see what he does. At Saturday’s planning meeting held in four different cities and tied together by television screens, people pointed out that the mayor’s passive leadership of “anyone who wants to can rebuild” has resulted in some people returning their homes to full usefulness, only to discover they are the only ones living on their block. They are not happy with that.

The question is whether Blakely’s arrival is too little, too late. Let’s hope not.

Say, you wouldn’t be missing a half million dollars, would you? On October 14, state troopers pulled over a truck on Interstate 12 in St. Tammany Parish, for erratic and careless driving. Inside the cab, they found all this cash hidden away. The driver knew nothing about this, of course, and eventually, the police released the two men with their truck, but kept the cash. It had to be drug money, they assume.

If the money belongs to you, they say, you have until the end of the month to collect it, otherwise it goes to the State of Louisiana. I know there are a lot of dumb crooks out there, but you just have to wonder if any of them will be so far out of it that they walk in to the Highway Patrol office and claim that money. Angola has a cell just waiting for them.

Finally: I thank God for you who read these blogs and who pray for us.