Category Archives: Thankfulness

November 23, 2023 · 7:25 am

Thanksgiving and longing

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning— Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption. And He shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:5-8)

Another thanksgiving, it seems, when we are in mourning. We grieve the loss of so many things, and yet we hear the voice of scripture urging us to rejoice always. Give thanks at all times.

How do you rejoice in the midst of loss and grief?

If there were nothing to long for, nothing to lose, and nothing to love, then there would be no grief. You cannot mourn the loss of loved ones if there were no loved ones.

You cannot mourn unless there is love. And you cannot love unless there is a remnant of beauty in this world.

We mourn because we aren’t home yet. We mourn because we long for beauty, and beauty is so fleeting. We mourn because we loved deeply and that which we loved was taken away.

We mourn because our hearts long for Eden, and right now we are east of Eden, waiting for the Tabernacle of God to descend from heaven.

We mourn because we are waiting through the dark night longing for the morning in the land where there is no night.

We mourn because of death and the curse and saying goodbye. And the reason that these things hurt us so deeply is because we are human, created for something deeper, more beautiful, more lasting, more pure, than that which we see on this earth.

And longing wouldn’t be possible if we weren’t made for something to long for: for love, for goodness, for wisdom and for beauty.

And we have those remnants still in our hearts and long for the day when those longings will finally be filled.

Only the heart that loves deeply can grieve. Cold hearts can see nothing but grey. They refuse to grieve so they refuse to love. They refuse to wait for morning, so the spend their days in eternal dusk, refusing to hope for light.

But the living heart desires, loves, longs – and this means that the living heart also grieves.

Love and beauty are good things, though. Desire and longing point to redemption, when the night passes and day springs eternal.

And that is truly something to be thankful for.

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November 22, 2022 · 8:30 am

Grief and Gratitude (a thanksgiving meditation)

I remember the last time that I cried. I was perhaps 10 or 11 years old. We were in a restaurant and I was suddenly overcome with emotion and just started crying. I didn’t know how to explain that I was just overwhelmed and exhausted, so I said something about my food.

My dad was furious. He was definitely of the “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” school of thought. He lectured me on gratitude. If I am thankful, then I wouldn’t be crying…

I started to learn how to mask any tears. Tears are always associated in my subconscious with sinful weakness. Maybe one day I will have a breakthrough and learn how to ugly-cry again. I think I might need it.

Anyway, the reason that I am bringing it up is that there is a discussion on Twitter about depression. Someone stated, “Jesus never suffered from depression.”

In order to make that statement, you would have to define depression. If you mean it colloquially, as in, “someone so overwhelmed with grief that they feel like they are dying, then it is easy to demonstrate that Jesus did indeed suffer from that kind of grief”. He was sorrowful to the point of death at Gethsemane.

If, however, you mean the clinical definition of depression, we don’t have the evidence one way or another. He also never got the flu (at least that we know of from scripture) but I am hard-pressed to know what the point is.

I think that the point of the original post is that depression, however you define it, is sin and if someone had proper gratitude then depression will flee away. Just in time for thanksgiving, someone always resurrects the idea that if one is truly thankful in everything, then there is no room for sadness, grief or depression.

Lose a child? Chin up. You can always have another.

Divorce? You’ll find someone else.

Don’t worry. Be happy. Count your blessings.

Be thankful, and all your worries and griefs will be whisked away.

Codswallop.

12 years ago, I lost a child two weeks before thanksgiving. That is a long story, one that I might have the courage to tell one day.

So I want to write this to everyone who is having a hard time counting their blessings this year. I get it. The food tastes like sawdust in the mouth. The painful lump in the back of the throat. The tears that are always threatening, and the subconscious effort to make sure that they don’t burst the dam.

You don’t want to ruin everyone’s thanksgiving. And so you try to be a bit more thankful. If only you would repent of your ingratitude, then you wouldn’t be a bother to anyone else.

Please take this as an encouragement. This world is so, so often a valley of tears. And gratitude and grief often reside in the same breast.

And that’s OK. In fact, that is exactly what redeemed humanity looks like this side of glory. We take up our crosses with him. We cry out with him in Gethsemane. And we remember the joy that is also set before us. It isn’t here.

My dad, who hated any displays of emotion, also would say, “God would not have us be too much at home here.” Our affections are where Christ is seated, at God’s right hand. This is where our thanksgiving is. That God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

The tears will be wiped away. The curse of death destroyed. The presence of God will be with a redeemed humanity, where the lamb is the light and there is no more sea of uncertainty and danger, no more night of weeping and cold sweats and relived trauma.

But today is not that day. Today, we live by faith and not by sight.

Which means that grief and gratitude reside in the same breast.

Let your children cry. Even for no reason. Let your friends and family weep.

Let them be downcast and mourn, for sometimes the weight is so, so heavy. Spend your thanksgiving with friends and family who know how to weep together, as well as rejoice together. This doesn’t mean that they are unthankful. It simply means that they see the gap between the already and the not yet.

They see the gap between Eden and East of Eden, and they are longing – so, so much – to be back home in Eden, where Christ is at the right hand of God.

Doesn’t the bride weep while the groom is absent?

When the groom appears, all tears will be wiped away. Until then, friends, don’t be ashamed of the tears. The groom is coming.

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May 3, 2022 · 10:58 am

How to be thankful

How does one be “thankful”. Why does God tell us to be thankful?

What happens if we aren’t thankful enough. Does God punish us?

Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Ps. 106:1)

I think the problem is that our default position is to think of “thanksgiving” somewhat like a kid being forced to write notes to a distant aunt.

“Dear auntie. Thank you for the bunny pajamas. They are cool. Love Sam.”

But this is not what the Bible means by thanksgiving.

Look at it instead this way – in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve everything they could possibly imagine or want. They were rich beyond compare. And they fell for Satan’s lie: “There is one thing God didn’t give you. He is stingy and mean. He won’t take care of you. He isn’t good.”

This is the default position of the human race now: “God isn’t good. He hasn’t done enough. He is a stingy taskmaster demanding sacrifices from us and if we are good enough we might be able to wring a blessing from his tight-fisted hand.”

I might suggest that this is even the way that we view thanksgiving – as if it is a service that you have to render to a harsh god to avoid punishment.

God doesn’t need our thank-you cards and our rote prayers.

Instead, he came to do away with the curse and draw us into fellowship – Jesus is the groom and we are the bride; he has given us everything we can possibly imagine and treasures that we can’t even fathom wait for us in heaven.

But greater than all of it is that the day will come when we will see him face to face and we will have no more sin and shame and alienation and we will be open and intimate and face to face with God Himself.

Thanksgiving is living with that reality in front of our eyes. It isn’t a job we do. It is a life we live – poorly, most of the time. But that doesn’t change God’s goodness or his love for us.

Imagine a long engagement:

5 “I arose to open to my beloved; And my hands dripped with myrrh, And my fingers with liquid myrrh, On the handles of the bolt.
  6 “I opened to my beloved, But my beloved had turned away and had gone! My heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him; I called him, but he did not answer me.
  (Cant. 5:5-6)

He is gone, and you can’t find him! How your soul longs for his touch and your mouth longs for his kisses! But he is gone.

“Gone away from me. Gone away from me. Life is long, my love is gone away from me” (Ray Lamontagne)

And then he returns. He takes you up in his arms and embraces you. You shout and sing for joy. Your soul is so full it is bursting!

Do you want to know what thanksgiving is? Read the Song of Songs. It is falling into the embrace of the One who loves you and gave himself for you.

So it isn’t like writing an obligatory thank you card to a rather clueless aunt. It is a joyful embrace of love!

This changes everything, doesn’t it?

Today, we are the separated lovers longing for the fulfillment of everything, longing for the marriage supper.

This is what we sigh for and wait for. Thanksgiving is living life waiting for the embrace of your groom, your lover, your friend.

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January 2, 2021 · 2:12 pm

Things for the New Year

Things to do for 2021, in no particular order:

Meditate on things that make you smile.

Think about things that are beautiful.

Sit on the porch and look for birds.

Listen to a kind of music that you have never listened to. Put the effort in to appreciate something different. Beauty is worth the effort.

Listen to someone who has different political views without viewing them as an enemy to be destroyed. You might learn something. At least you will be stronger in your own conviction. You might actually change your mind about something.

Understand that changing your mind about something is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth.

Kiss your spouse every day.

Quit thinking all the time about who is in charge and simply enjoy the ride.

Slow down. Smell the wine. Swirl it around the tongue. Try to understand what the label is talking about.

Think about the people you are going to hug when this is all over.

Call someone who is lonely and ask them how you can pray for them.

Stop being afraid of everything.

Go outside and walk beside a river.

Find a bird sanctuary and sit and listen. Leave your phone at home.

Give a cold bottle of water to a homeless person on a hot day.

Quit dividing the world into us and them. Reject all notions of the “repugnant cultural other”, and learn to honor the dignity of the image-bearer of God in front of you, no matter who they are.

Buy a coloring book and crayons.

Forget the label and just have chips and queso. Just know when to stop.

Clean out your closets. You might find a memory.

Wear the clothes that you like to wear.

Buy a pair of fabulous socks.

Pray for your pastor every day.

For each of the things above, for the crisp air, the fabulous wine, the birds in the sanctuary, the sound of the river, the flowers in the grass, the chips and queso, the colors and sounds and textures – just stop for a minute and give thanks to our great God and Father, who makes all things.

And give thanks to Christ who has redeemed us by his blood and made us kings and priests.

And give thanks to the Holy Spirit who breathes life into us so that we can see and hear and taste and touch and marvel and the wisdom and beauty and faithfulness of our Father.

O that men would praise the Lord for his covenant faithfulness, for his works of wonder among the children of men!

Happy New Years!

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July 29, 2020 · 4:18 pm

Thoughts on God’s mercy

Last night, I woke at 2 AM, which is fairly typical. Last night was a bit different, though, because I was also attacked with an unrelenting darkness that buried me in a dense cloud of shame and worthlessness. That is more infrequent, but that particular dark cloud is not a stranger to my room.

The black cloud that envelopes me seems to whisper at me that I don’t deserve God’s compassion. It is for other people, not for me. I am outside of it looking in the window at God’s mercy to others, but it will never be for me. I’m too…useless, worthless. It’s hard to describe, but I would imagine that I am not the only one who gets attacked by this particular cloud.

The trigger for this particular cloud is that I had fairly intense pain for the last 5 days that there was no relief for. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t lie down. It wears on you.

I’m telling you this because one thing that chronic pain does is isolate you and make you feel like you are alone – hence, the black cloud. So I am telling you, if you struggle with chronic pain as well, you are not alone. And these thoughts you have are also not unique, nor do they put you outside of God’s compassion.

But let me go on.

I have learned that simply lying there in the dark staring at the ceiling is not an effective solution. So after trying for 30 minutes or so to sleep, I got up and opened my kindle paperwhite to a wonderful book by Dane C. Ortlund called “Gentle and Lowly.” (If you don’t have it, get it now).

He wrote something that stuck on me like a burr and won’t shake off. I want to share it with you so you can think about it with me. He wrote,

“Unlike us, who are often emotional dams ready to break, God can put up with a lot. This is why the Old Testament speaks of God being “provoked to anger” by his people dozens of times….But not once are we told that God is “provoked to love” or “provoked to mercy.” His anger requires provocation. His mercy is pent up, ready to gush forth. We tend to think: divine anger is pent up, springloaded; divine mercy is slow to build. But it is just the opposite.

And I thought about that. It occurred to me that this is a difference between the gods of the pagans and the God of the Bible. The settled state of the gods of the pagans is either anger or indifference. They have to be provoked out of it. This is why they had to eventually offer their children as sacrifices – to try to convince the gods to pay attention to them. It is why Cain offered the sacrifice that he offered. It is why so many churches are full of so many people trying to get God to listen to them, to pay attention. “If only we worked harder, did more, loved more, gave more money, purged ourselves from sin, did better….”

But the settled state of the true God is love. Mercy. Compassion. He must be provoked to anger. And that takes a long, long time. In fact, he is reserving his wrath for the day of judgment. The reason that he delays is that he is not willing that any  should perish, but that all should repent and believe the gospel. The goodness of God should lead us to repentance. He is so good to us that he did not come in judgment as soon as mankind deserved it. He first sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.

I had everything backwards under my 2 am cloud. I still tend to view God as my earthly father. If I accomplished enough, did enough, made no mistakes, worked hard enough, and found the right formula, then perhaps I can get him to at least notice that I am here.

But God is not my earthly father. He is my Heavenly Father. His settled state is compassion. I don’t have to provoke him to love. His love is already there. It was his love that provoked him to provide a sacrifice for our sins, to speak in human terms. It was his love that caused him to send his only begotten Son into the world, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

My Christian walk is not about trying to appease God’s anger or indifference. It is about resting in his love through faith in His Son, who gave himself for me. In that rest, I can turn outside of myself and my accomplishments and simply love and serve those whom God has placed around me.

It is God’s anger that is provoked, not his love. And that changes everything.

Think about it.

A pagan god – indifferent or angry. Must be provoked to pay attention.

The Covenant God of Abraham – full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, plenteous in covenant faithfulness and love.

OH – and get Dane Ortlund’s book.

8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
(Rom. 5:8-10)

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February 21, 2020 · 11:13 am

Jacob have I loved

2 “I have loved you,” says the LORD. “Yet you say,`In what way have You loved us?’ Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” Says the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have loved; (Mal 1:2)

There has been much ink spilled on this verse in relation to the doctrine of election. In fact, that is Paul’s entire point in Romans 9. I am unabashedly Reformed and hold to the doctrine of election and reprobation as summarized in the Canons of dordt. But I can’t tackle every subject every time I write. So lets assume that one, and look at this verse from another direction.

I would like to analyze the sneering response of Israel. God says, “I have loved you” and you say, “Yeah? Really? How?”

Satan’s first temptation was an attack on the goodness and benevolence of God. “Yeah, hath God said…”

And this is the heart of every sin. God says, “I am good.”

And we say, “yeah? Prove it.”

God says, “I love you”.

And we say, “Yeah? prove it.”

And every time we do, we fall into the same temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to. I think that this is the primary battle against the flesh that we must war against daily.

It is so prevalent and deadly that the Reformed Confessions, primarily the Heidelberg Catechism, summarizes the whole duty of redeemed man as “gratitude” – embracing God’s goodness.

“Rejoice in all things, and again I say, rejoice!”

So how do you do that when you are in pain? When you are mourning? When you face disappointment and heartache and loss? How do you rejoice always, even in a Roman prison (which is where Paul was when he wrote that).

“Jacob have I loved”.

First, you start with the love of God, beyond all understanding. It is God’s desire that you know him. Not only in words and in theory and in treatises, but in actually experiential knowledge. That you might know his redeeming power, his strength in weakness, his love in a world of rage, his beauty in the midst of ugliness, his glory in the midst of ashes.

And because God loves his people in Christ, he shows us glimpses of his goodness, the amuse-bouche for the wedding supper of the lamb. He gives us just enough of a glimpse in this cursed world that we might long for him, set our affections where he is, and stop glorying in our strength and our wisdom and our goodness.

He gives us those glimpses of his goodness in the midst of the ashes of this cursed world.

The tang and crunch of the apple. Try the Opal, if you haven’t yet.

The brilliant skill of a talented baker of pie (I’m a sucker for good cherry pie. If you are ever south of Yuba City on Highway 99, try Stephen’s Farmhouse. Amazing pie – they can even do gluten free!)

Fresh baked bread and sharp cheese.

The smell of rain on dry ground (petrichor – I didn’t know it had a name until recently.)

The astounding beauty of a skilled musician; the breathtaking scope of art; the curve of the tulip…

The thrill of discovering something new; the kiss on the cheek; snuggling with your sweetie while watching British mysteries; the wine on the back porch around the patio fireplace in the evening…

Far too often we are so busy demanding that God prove his goodness to us that we miss the innumerable proofs that he surrounds us with daily.

Elie Wiesel wrote that Adolph Hitler was the only one who kept all of his promises to Israel. I understand why he thought that, but what a sad statement! God kept every promise to every one of his people, and always has. The problem is not in the reality. It is in our eyes.

“I have loved you.”

“Yeah? Prove it.”

We all do it, because we are in the midst of a cursed world and because we have inherited the sin of Adam. Don’t we all mimic the sentiment of Elie Wiesel when we are at our lowest? God is not good. He does not love us.

But God has not left us there.

“First of all, I love you. I called you out of Egypt. I redeemed you from your misery and sentence of death that you might know me.”

Even in our darkest moments, God is near. He doesn’t abandon us in the valley of the shadow of death. He walks with us.

And beyond that, he did not need to create the world in color. He could have given us food in the form of tasteless paste to keep us alive. What purpose does music serve if the point of life is simply to stay alive?

When we remind ourselves that “Jesus loves us, this I know for the bible tells me so”, from there we will see endless examples of his love and beauty and goodness to mankind.

To paraphrase Calvin, every blade of grass is created that the hearts of the sons and daughters of men might rejoice. The fault is not in the love of God. The fault is in our ingratitude.

Remind yourself of the gospel. Stop being afraid of everything. You don’t catch sin by looking at the wrong thing, or hearing the wrong thing. Your sins are washed away completely. And then look around. See all of the beauty that you are missing?

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November 23, 2017 · 6:48 am

Rejoice Always!

There are a lot of people opening up about the abuse that they have suffered.So many must be feeling triggered right now. Holidays are so hard for so many – reminders of betrayal, heartache, loneliness – that we live in a cursed world full of injustice, lust for power, greed. Many are perhaps suffering from illness or ongoing pain. Many have gone to the church for help only to be attacked, shamed and abused in the house of God!

And yet we also see the command of God to rejoice always! How can we do this?

Here is a list of things that we can truly be thankful for, even in the whirlwind of this life in the flesh.

  1. We have been completely washed by the blood and Spirit of Jesus. On particularly rough days, I imagine the meaning of my baptism as I shower. Just as this cool, refreshing, cleansing water is cleaning my body, I really and truly am washed by the blood of Christ. I am clean completely in the eyes of God. He doesn’t see me as I see myself, or as others see me, but as a new creation, fit to enter his presence – clean. He sees me the same way that he sees Jesus – his well-beloved Son.
  2. Because I am in Christ, God loves me with an almighty, infinite, unchanging eternal love. So I can rest in him. Because he is almighty, there is nothing outside of his power. Because he is unchanging, nothing can remove me from his hands.
  3. He sets the lonely into families; he frees the prisoners; he heals the sick; he feeds the hungry. He cares for my broken-down body. He is at work in me and I am fearfully and wonderfully made! His faithfulness is everlasting – unchanging, almighty, infinite.
  4. God is just, and this is a cause for rejoicing! On this earth, justice always comes short. The wicked prosper and the righteous are oppressed. Ahab gets rich and Naboth is stoned and everything seems completely upside-down. There is even great wickedness in the house of God! But God told us there would be. And God told us that he will not forget. He sees it and there will be a reckoning. God’s judgment will be infinite, almighty and unchanging. He will thoroughly clean his threshing floor.
  5. Sometimes we tie ourselves into knots trying to figure out how a just God squares with an evil world. But since 1 and 2 above are true, we can stop trying to figure it all out, and just rest – knowing that God is not fooled, is not swayed by trends and opinions, and already has this sorted. Our job is to wait and hold to Christ. The secret things belong to him.
  6. And the day will come when Jesus will descend with a shout of the archangel and the blast of the trumpet. His people will be gathered together and meet him in the air, and descend triumphantly with him. They will be vindicated before everyone. Every slander will be revealed for what it is, every murderer and reviler exposed, every abuse and every degradation exposed and left without excuse. There won’t be any “mistakes were made” or “besides, I’m gay” or “we were protecting the ministry” or “everybody did it back then”. There will be only perfect justice.
  7. And God’s people, united to Christ by faith, will be vindicated before the world. Every glass of water given freely, every meal shared, every kind word, every prayer – not to prove anything to God, but to reveal God’s people for who THEY are. Slander and reviling and gas-lighting will all be destroyed forever. God knows his own, and his works in his own people will be revealed before the universe.
  8. And there will be no more curse. No more loneliness, no more wickedness and strife, no more illness and pain, no more death, no more lies.
  9. The day will come when we will crush the head of the serpent under our feet and reign over all things forever and ever.
  10. No matter how weak we are on this earth, no matter how many have trodden us underfoot, no matter what we have suffered, we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ. In him there is no more male and female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile, but we are all one in Jesus Christ. We share in his sufferings together. We share in his glory. We will reign with him over all creation forever. How astounding is that??

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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