Thanksgiving

Today at church they talked about the idea of thanksgiving. At the start of the sermon every week the pastor does some announcements, and both announcements this week were sad. The first was that this woman who had been on the prayer list for months finally passed away. I don't really know much about it, but it felt like everyone was ready. The second announcement was truly awful though; this family in the church had a baby two weeks ago and there were some complications. The baby died on Friday at only 10 days old. I can't imagine that. If you read this and are the type to pray at all, pray with me for that family. Right after "announcing" this to the congregation the pastor had to give a sermon on thanksgiving. The gist of the sermon being that in life's many different circumstances, both good and bad, we are called, commanded even, to be thankful in everything. "in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 This idea ties in with my Kingdom post earlier this week. Our response to life is supposed to be thankfulness, even when our circumstances are impossible, even when we don't understand, even when no one would blame us for not; we are called to be thankful.

I am not saying here that all of the things in life we experience are good, or feel good, or that we should feel good about everything, because honestly, we shouldn't. There are things in life we should feel bad about. Sin should be offensive to us. We should not be thankful that someone gets raped or murdered, or when some one's house gets broken into, or when a baby dies. Sometimes we need to feel hurt and angry even, but even in those circumstances we somehow should remember to be thankful; not for the circumstances, but in spite of them. No matter what happens in the temporal life around us Christ still has grace enough to redeem us of our sin and restore us when we are victims. There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from Him. At the end of the day He is still the King, He is still on the throne. Christ is constantly working on His vine; He is pruning, and watering, and harvesting, and sometimes bandaging, but always He is working. For this we should always be thankful.

I want to cite two examples of what this looks like from scripture. The guy who writes most often about being thankful (at least in the New Testament) is Paul. He says over and over a host of things he is thankful for; from the grace of Christ, to people or churches, even his own life. He is the one who writes in Thessalonians "be thankful always". It's an obvious connection, but still worth mentioning, that he is also the guy who in Corinthians points out just how much ground he has to stand on when saying that.

"21To my shame I must say that we have been weak by comparison But in whatever respect anyone else is bold--I speak in foolishness--I am just as bold myself. 22Are they Hebrews? So am I Are they Israelites? So am I Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23Are they servants of Christ?--I speak as if insane--I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."~ 2 Corinthians 11:21-27

"Be thankful always" isn't coming from some everything in my life is great pastor in Texas named Joel, its coming from Paul the Apostle. This is the same guy who says later "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ."~ Philippians 3:8 He says that from jail at the end of his life when he knows he could be executed at any time. For some reason I have really been hit lately by the way I have responded to some things in my life, especially "adversity."

My first response when something happens to me is usually something selfish. I deflect with things like "it's not my fault" or "I'm justified" or "if so and so had just..." There's two problems with this sort of response. First I am focused on myself. Secondly I'm focused on the present situation. My first response is almost never God is good, this will work out. That's especially funny to me because that's almost always my go to response in some form or another when something difficult is happening to someone I care about. For me it's easy to say to others "Focus on Christ," but hard to do myself.

I look at the example of Stephen when he is brought up on trial in front of the Pharisees as an example of how I should respond when dealing with hardship. He is the guy who runs the early church soup kitchen. His job is to make sure all the people that need food are being fed. Some people start some rumors about him to get him in trouble, and when he's brought to some witch hunt kangaroo court he doesn't try to defend himself. He doesn't try to say that the charges are bogus. He doesn't try to justify his actions. His response is focused entirely on the person of God. He tells the story of God. His first response is to tell everyone who God is. He is focused on the great history of what God has done in the world and who He is, not himself and what he has done. The thing Stephen and Paul have in common is that they are both entirely convinced that everything rests in the hope Christ offers. it doesn't matter to either of them that they are experiencing something difficult.

My second example of being thankful is Christ himself. On the night of his false arrest, false accusation, false trial, and false execution he is still thankful. At the Last Supper when He prayed before breaking bread it says he "gave thanks" (Matt 26:11, Mark 14:23, Luke 22:17) He was not totally siked about the next 24 hours. He was stressed out to the point of sweating blood, and yet He was still thankful. He looked forward at taking on the sin of the world and carrying it to the cross with thanksgiving. I think He was only able to do that because His focus was on God achieving His will, not on the difficulty of the part He was required to play. His prayer should be mine; "not my will, but yours."

The example is clear of how I am supposed to position my attitude. I am supposed to be focused on God and what He is accomplishing. Someone recently shared a great analogy with me about following Christ. He said to me "Say you are swimming in a harbor towards the only point of land in sight, and the whole time you are swimming fog keeps rolling in and out of the harbor occasionally preventing you from seeing the lighthouse you are swimming towards. When you can see the light house you swim towards it, and when you can't see the lighthouse you swim in the direction of the lighthouse as well as you can remembering where it was. Every time the fog clears enough for you to see it again you correct your course as much as you need to and keep going." Staying focused on Christ sounds good, but let's be honest, it's not always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you lose sight of what God is doing. The key to being faithful is to keep swimming even when the fog is to thick to know exactly the direction to go. The idea being that even when we can't see it the goal (Christ) is still in mind. When I can (see Him) I should be thankful for being able to, and when I can't I should be thankful that He is still there just on the other side of the mist.