Thanksgiving

The list of impossible things

I don’t know if anyone else ever called this passage by such a name but that is what it seems like to me. The list of impossible things.

1 Thessalonians 5:12–22 NASB95

But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.

It doesn’t start off too bad, appreciate those who labor among you, that’s not too hard. Now appreciating those who have charge over you that is a little more difficult. Even if you have a good parents, or a good boss, or good church leaders they will sometimes make mistakes and sometimes you will make mistakes and they will have to correct you because of the position that they are in, and nobody likes that.

live in peace with one another, we do that one OK sometimes but other times we have a lot of trouble with it, amen. Be patient with everyone. Wow, have you ever noticed that some people are harder than others to be patient with. Never repay evil for evil and seek good fore everyone, tough

rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, abstain from every evil. How tough is that.

We could spend months on this passage. Today I want to look at one particular aspect of this list, not because it is more important or because it is our worst problem but because it is appropriate to the day.

After the service we celebrate our thanksgiving dinner as a church so I want to look at the item, in everything give thanks.

Have you ever thought of that one. really thought about it. What does it mean, how do you do it. Well the meaning seems pretty clear, give thanks in everything, every circumstance, every challenge, every situation good or bad. But that seems crazy. I mean think about it, how can you give thanks in every situation, some situations are terrible.

I have a friend who is fighting her second battle with cancer. The first time was a long fight that took a lot out of her but she thought she beat it. Then it came back. When she first started fighting cancer they found out that someone had stolen their identity and several thousand dollars of their savings. Money that could have helped cover for doctor bills and missed work. Time drug on an more treatments more doctors, more bad news and then the other shoe dropped. The company she had worked for for years and years went out of business and declared bankruptcy. When it did she lost her insurance. How do you look at that situation and give thanks?

We have someone on our prayer list who has five tumors in her head and is struggling day by day, how do you find a reason to give thanks for that.

In fact all of us have things that happen to us or around us that gives us a real problem finding ways to be thankful.

This American holiday is based around a similar idea to the biblical idea of forgiveness. The pilgrims had experienced a hard winter where they had little food and were short on shelter and they had survived. Not all of them survived and all of them had a difficult time of it but now they had come through and they had a holiday to celebrate. They spent a day being thankful.

If we look at this passage in Thessalonians the first part of the chapter talks about hard times.

1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 NASB95

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

While they are looking for peace and safety destruction will come upon them and they will find no escape. Prepare yourself as if you were putting on armor for battle, encourage one another and build one another up like you have been doing, and keep doing it.

In other words things have been tough and they will continue to be tough but you need to keep encouraging each other and in the midst of this, on top of other things you are to give thanks in everything, but how.

I have recently come to a new understanding of one of the ways this works. For years I have heard people say that you just have to be thankful for everything, but that is not what it says. The scripture says in everything give thanks not for everything give thanks. But what is the difference.

Not long ago a case of Montezuma’s revenge went through our household. It was some kind of 24 hour bug. You started by feeling nauseous and proceeded to spend the next day or so either sitting on the toilet or sticking your head into one. It was awful. 10 people in the house and it went trough all of us one at a time. One person would get it and then a day or two later another person and then the next day someone else.

The day after my turn I was feeling better but not yet sure I was ready to eat anything but everyone else was eating so i was saying a blessing for the food. It is hard to feel thankful when you are just getting over being sick and feeling miserable.

I prayed and thanked God for food I was not going to eat and didn’t want but it struck me that for 364 days of the year I had eaten three meals a day and enjoyed doing so immensely. In fact most of the time I am not sick, I feel good and I can eat what I want and feel good enough to do what I need to do. So I thanked God for the health that I enjoy most of the time.

In fact I have begun to do that more and more often in prayer and in blessings for meals. When something is going wrong or something unpleasant is on my mind I remember that I most of the time I don’t have that problem, and I am thankful for that.

Most of you know that my youngest son and his wife had their baby born this week, 26 weeks in the womb and the baby had to be taken due to pregnancy complications. The baby has to have help to breathe and help to live. I thanked God that my three boys did have to go through that when they were born or that I never had to worry about whether or not my kids would be able to be born. When the baby came he was doing better than anyone expected, everyone was worried that his lungs would not be developed enough to be able to breathe but he even tried to cry and to breathe on his own.

His vitals were good and he is doing well, something to be truly thankful for. We wondered if it would be so. We were afraid that he might not live. My son told me that every day they would run this test on his heart and every time they ran the test they would tell my son and his wife that there was a good chance that the baby was already dead. How horrible.

I thought again of how blessed I was that I never had to go through that. How blessed millions of parents are who have normal pregnancies and normal babies. How much of our lives we are truly blessed just to be normal, to not have been born into poverty and starvation like much of the world, to have been born with sight and with all of our arms and legs. We don’t think about these things, especially as something to be thankful for until we encounter someone who doesn’t have them.

Friday was veterans day, a day we take to be thankful to those who sacrificed so that we could be free. So that no one tells us where to live or where to work, so that we have choices and options. So many things to be thankful for, so many blessing we have. In everything, even when it is hard there is something to give thanks for. In fact it is sometimes the best thing we can do.

When things are tough and time are hard, when you want to give up and give in sometimes the best thing you can do is remember the things that still work. Be thankful for what you have, concentrate on the good, on the blessings, be encouraged through the difficult times by being thankful in everything. Maybe you can’t be thankful for everything, especially not when you are in the middle of it. But in every situation, in every difficulty, there is something left, some ray of hope, some way to be encouraged, in that we can be thankful.

Even if we got down to the point where there was nothing else left, when we feel like nothing is going right and we can find no reason to hope, and if we were honest we usually overstress the bad and underrate the good, but even if we got the point where nothing else was left we have the promise of God that it will not always be this way.

One day he is going to come again and gather up his children and bring take us to a perfect place prepared for us in advance, and all will be right with the world, as Jesus intended it to be.