Tag Archives: Thankfulness

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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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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