Give Thanks

Introduction

Thanksgiving is a secular holiday. By this I mean that no where in scripture are we commanded to have an annual feast to mark the things God has done for us over a dinner of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. But at the same time, taking a day to give thanks feels like an intensely Christian thing to do. After all, we live in a culture that worships at the alter of consumption. No matter how much we have, we never seem to have enough. So it’s important to stop and look at our lives and see the faithful hand of God at work. Doing so doesn’t change our situation, but it can drastically change the way we feel about our situation. I would suggest Christians can see thanksgiving as fitting time to do three different things: 1) a time to take inventory of God’s faithfulness, 2) a time to see difficulties in a new light, and 3) a time to embody God’s blessings to others.

A Time to Inventory God’s Faithfulness

We are by nature discontent people. Economists tell us that while resources are finite, human desire is infinite. In other words, there’s never enough to go around. Modern advertising is finely tuned to create desires in us that don’t naturally occur. We’re hard-wired to need food, water, and affection. But we’re conditioned by advertising to desire heaps of other stuff because we believe it makes us cool, or it makes our lives easier or because we deserve it. Advertisers make money by stoking in us desires for more stuff than almost any of us have the resources to acquire, so we spend our lives in a constant state of dissatisfaction. I’d be happy if I only had a bigger house, a newer iPhone, or more fashionable clothes. Despite being one of the most affluent cultures of any time in human history, we experience a profound sense of scarcity.

Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that we’re so focused on all the things that we don’t have, we often loose sight of many things we do have. It’s a good exercise to take stock of the blessings we enjoy because it helps us see our wants differently. Or, as Sheryl Crowe put it, “It’s not having what you want. It’s wanting what you’ve got.”

There are many blessings we all share in together. We live in a country where we enjoy freedom including the freedom to worship opening. Our land is at peace. We have a access to quality education. We have clean air and clean drinking water. We live amidst natural beauty. While we endure a public health crisis, we do so with free medical care. We may have found ourselves unable to work in the last few months, but a social-safety net helps cushion the blow. Our community has, at least so far, been spared some of the horrors that other places have endured from COVID-19.

On a personal level there are things that many, but not necessarily all of us enjoy: Good health, Family close by, housing that protects us from the elements, sufficient food to eat, cherished friendships. All of these things are only possible because of the generosity of God. While we might be tempted to take credit for some or all of them, if we look at other places in the world and at other times in history, we know that they aren’t things we have any right to take for granted.

God has been good to us. We’re so conditioned to want stuff we don’t have that we often loose sight of the many blessings we enjoy. How can it be that we have so much, yet we lack a few things (things that aren’t even really necessary) and we find ourselves feeling dissatisfied? As we think about how much God has given us, it puts the things we are without into a very different perspective.

A Time to See Difficulties in a New Light

But that’s not to say that there aren’t genuine difficulties, struggles, hardships and tragedies in our lives. These things are there too. In the early church believers lived under the constant threat of persecution. The authorities were known to torture and kill Christians who refused to renounce their faith. It can be very hard to see God’s goodness at work in your life when you’re in the midst of such difficulty.

But that’s exactly what believers are instructed to do. In James 1:2-4 we read a challenge James (Jesus’ brother) gives to the early church: to rejoice in suffering

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4, NIV)

Now to be sure, James isn’t saying, “If you’re sad when things are hard, you’re spiritually defective.” Instead, he’s trying to teach us that we can choose how we respond when things get hard. The word translated here as trials can refer to either temptations or difficulties. So James is saying when we’re challenged we can choose to see it with natural eyes that rail about the injustice of it or are resigned to suffer it in helplessness. Instead, he says, we can choose to see it from God’s perspective. God allows us to go through challenges because they fortify our faith, bringing us to spiritual maturity. In that light we can rejoice because we know that our suffering is an investment made in the transformation of our character.

This can sometimes be a dissatisfying answer. “I’m saved by grace, not by works. Why does God need to shape my character now, if he’s going to effortlessly transform me in an instant in the hereafter?” someone might ask. I think that form of cheap grace would be unrecognizable to the apostles. Just remember that for the early Christians remaining faithful would sometimes (at some periods, often) involve being socially outcast, having your goods taken away, losing your employment, being tortured or even put to death in some very inhumane ways. Mature faith was what helped a person stand firm in Jesus at the time of trial.

Life here and now is different. Being Christians isn’t likely to put our lives or livelihoods at risk. But we still need Godly character. Salvation isn’t about intellectually believing the right things. Scripture says we’re saved by grace through faith. But what does faith mean? The Greek word we translate faith, pistis, also translates as faithfulness. The two words are linked in a way we typically don’t mean in English. Faith means active trust in God, not static intellectual belief about God. If my faith is the kind that permits me to live life identically to how I lived without faith, then it’s not really faithful faith. Faithful faith involves more than making a one-time decision to pray a salvation prayer, rather it means that I surrender control over my life to Jesus my Lord. Certainly it doesn’t mean we live perfect lives. Sanctification, as we call it, is an ongoing process. But if we’re not even willing to try, I fear we’re in real danger.

God wants to help us to learn to become more like Jesus. This helps us in the struggles in our lives. If you’re life is a struggle because you’re caught in the grips of sin—substance abuse, gossip, porn, materialism—God wants to set you free so that you can live life in right relation to him and to others.

But transformation isn’t automatic; It requires our cooperation. Simply going through rough times doesn’t produce Godly character unless you submit to the work that God is doing in your life. When you choose to respond to the trials you face with confidence that God is using them for his loving and redemptive purposes then his grace will change you. If you don’t respond in faith and faithfulness, then the suffering is wasted. You will have gone through something awful and will have nothing to show for it. But if you respond faithfully, then your suffering will have benefits for you and for the people around you. This is why the writer of Hebrews says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11, NIV). Don’t think of discipline as punishment, but that which focuses you towards a desired goal.

A Time to Embody God’s Blessing to Others

Learning to rejoice in our trials isn’t just about helping us through tough times. It also helps others.

If your situation deteriorates into chaos, but you remain hopeful, it serves as a powerful testimony to others that God real and at work. In most of our experience, people don’t really change much. So when someone changes for the better, we want to know how they did it. It’s like when you see someone who has long been overweight shed the extra pounds, and you’re wondering to yourself, “what did they do?” and, “Can I do it too?” In the same way, when we see people responding to challenges with hope, grace and patience we want that too (the benefits, not the affliction). “Emily used to be so negative all the time, but now she seems like such a well-spring of hope, even when things are tough.” If you allow trials to mature you, then you become a walking-talking brochure for God’s transforming power. Do people see the changes that Jesus has made in your life and want what you have?

Putting it into practice

So what does this look like on a practical basis? First, it starts with “trials of many kinds.” This can be temptations (like substance abuse), unexpected crises (like job losses, or a serious illness), this can be mistreatment, (like a betrayal or slander). When we experience these things (as we all do) we have a choice to make. We can choose to respond in normal natural ways: giving in to temptation, to rage, to bitterness, to despair. Or we can choose to respond in faith.

We’re not meant to fake a smile and pretend like it’s OK that when things are hard or painful. Rather we’re challenged to believe that God is who he says he is and is doing what he says he will do. By believe, I don’t mean fixing our thinking, but of acting according to its truth. If God is all powerful and all loving, and all wise, then he has allowed this trial because it has redemptive possibilities. God is, with my cooperation, redeeming this world by allowing this to happen. That knowledge gives me the ability to respond differently.

Having hope totally transforms my perspective. This doesn’t mean that we enjoy the trials, but that we experience them differently. It’s like when a loved one dies. If that person is a believer, you believe you’ll see them again and that while you miss them terribly, they are with God. That realization doesn’t mean we don’t grieve the loss, but it does mean that we grieve it differently.

Your peace and hope in times of trial can be the greatest testimony that God is real and that he works in people’s lives. You likely came to faith by observing the power of God at work in the lives of people around you. It’s now your responsibility to pay it forward, to be that example of God’s power at work for others. That is an appropriate and faithful response.

Conclusion

So on this weekend of thanksgiving we celebrate the goodness of God towards us by taking stock of the marvelous things he’s done in our lives over the last year, helping us remember that while we still deal with the pain of a broken and fallen world.

We also stop to realize that even in the hard stuff, God is at work, and so we can find hope in our struggles too. As we see God’s loving purposes at work even in our difficulties, our response can be a witness to God’s love and power to the people around us. So while Thanksgiving isn’t a day in our liturgical calendar, taking the time to observe it is a very Christian thing to do.