Blog

by Logan Ames

As we move further into our season of holidays, we have more and more opportunities to reflect on our lives and what truly is most important to us. This week, that reflection will be most likely regarding the things for which we are thankful. God reminds us to BE thankful many different places in the Bible. But it truly is something we have to be. Thankfulness doesn’t just happen TO us. Even when things are not going well, we must be intentional about considering how blessed we are and all of the reasons we have to be grateful. If you ever read President Abraham Lincoln’s “Thanksgiving Proclamation” from 1863, just 3 months after the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, you see that being intentionally thankful in the midst of the darkest of circumstances is what our national Thanksgiving holiday is all about. In the midst of the devastation from the Civil War, Lincoln talks about all that God has done and provided for them and the need to set aside a day to remind ourselves of God’s benevolence.

Long before President Lincoln, the people who had to suffer the most excruciating of pains in the Bible demonstrated for us the need and the ability to be thankful and hopeful in the midst of those times. The prophet Jeremiah wrote a short book of the Bible called Lamentations. It can be found in the Old Testament. The Jews had suffered at the hands of the Babylonians who forced them into exile, and Jeremiah himself had suffered at the hands of ungodly leaders who would not listen to his words from the Lord. Jeremiah is lamenting everything that has happened, yet right in the middle of it he finds a reason to be thankful and hopeful. “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-23). In other words, Jeremiah finds comfort in knowing that no matter how bad things get, he is not going to be destroyed, and each morning that he wakes up and is able to breathe is a new mercy from God. This gives him hope that God is always in control no matter what.

Likewise, Job was a man in the Old Testament who had the worst of the worst happen to him. He had been a wealthy man who honored and followed God. But then, over a short span of time, he lost his entire family, his home, and his wealth, and he even began to experience painful sores all over his body. In the midst of his darkest times, he did not immediately sin or curse God. However, he did get to a point where he complained and questioned why God would allow all of this to happen to him. His complaint lasted for most of the Book of Job, yet right in the middle of it, he has a moment of clarity and hope. “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes - I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27). Job found the strength to go on despite all his pain because he knew he would one day see God.

In the New Testament, Jesus himself continued this practice of being thankful even in the midst of horrific circumstances. As he was gathering with his disciples the night before he was handed over to the authorities to begin his suffering for our sins, he ate what we now know as “the last supper” with them. Luke 22:17-19 tells us that Jesus “gave thanks” after taking both the cup and the bread and giving them to his disciples. He knew what was on the horizon for him personally, yet he gave thanks to the Father. He demonstrated for his closest followers what it means to thank the Father in ALL circumstances. Jesus certainly wasn’t thankful for all the physical pain, torture, and death he was about to experience, but he knew what the Father was up to and he trusted his ultimate plan. Therefore, he had legitimate reason to be thankful.

Do you have legitimate reason to be thankful? You cannot answer that question by only thinking about the way you feel right now. If you focus only on your difficult circumstances, you won’t find many reasons to be thankful. You have to take time to reflect on what God has done for you and where you’d be without his love, mercy, and grace. The Apostle Paul tells us why this is so important and why we must keep a joyful and thankful heart. He tells us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). Those weren’t just mere words on a page for Paul. He was sitting in a Roman prison cell when he wrote this letter. Those prison cells were not like the ones we have today with cable TV, comfortable beds, and at least a little bit of room to move around. The prisoners of that era were usually shackled to a hard bench so that they could barely move at all, AFTER being beaten or flogged. You can read an example of this in Acts 16:22-24. I saw such a prison cell with my own eyes just a month ago when I was in Jerusalem - which was under Roman control at the time of Jesus - and I couldn’t believe how restrictive it was. Paul literally would not have been able to move his legs or find relief from any of his pain at the time he wrote the letter to the Philippians, yet he stressed the need to ALWAYS rejoice.

In the next few verses, he reminds the believers in Philippi, and us, that we must not be anxious about anything in our lives, but we must come to God in prayer and present our requests to him WITH THANKSGIVING (Philippians 4:6). The Greek word for “thanksgiving” in this verse is eucharistos, which is where we get our English word “Eucharist." The Eucharist is what we call the ceremony in which we commemorate the Last Supper, where Jesus himself gave thanks. In other words, what Paul is saying in this verse is not just that we have to count our blessings in our lives so that we can “find something to be thankful for," but that no matter how bad things are getting we can always be thankful for the cross. If literally everything else in life is going to hell in a handbasket, we would still have reason to be thankful, and that reason is what Jesus did for us on the cross.

As you gather this week with friends and family for food, football, and fun, I encourage you to take time to just thank God for what he has done for you to give you freedom. Thank Jesus for what he did on the cross to give you victory over sin. Even if this has been a devastating year for you and you can’t think of things in your immediate circumstances to be thankful for, everyone can be thankful for the cross. Jesus loved you so much that he left the comfort of heaven, came to our messed up earth, and died the most horrible death so that you wouldn’t have to see the true and full consequences of sin. I realized and accepted that he did the same for me when I was 12 years old in 1994, and my life has been different because of it. When I can’t find any other reason to rejoice, I just thank him for the cross. I pray you do so as well!

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