Mentors in Thankfulness: What Triggers Thanksgiving (And Why We Hesitate)
Some holidays just come at the wrong time. Before I met my wife Hayden I didn’t appreciate Valentine’s Day. It came every year with advertising and chocolates on sale at K-Mart, but it wasn’t a holiday I could really get into.Â
Valentine’s Day is not the only holiday suffering scheduling problems: Thanksgiving can also seem like a holiday that comes at the wrong time. If I could just convince the calendar people, there would be some years that I would ask for it to be delayed until a different Thursday. Maybe the last Thursday in January? Surely I’ll be feeling thankful by then.Â
But waiting until the feeling is right isn’t quite the point is it? Should we wait until we feel right before we give thanks or show love? Many will say “Love isn’t a feeling — it’s an action,” and they’re about half right. When you read how God longs for His people and works for their good, you’d have to say true love really is both action and affection. Cast all your anxieties on God because He truly, deeply, genuinely, affectionately cares for you.
Thankfulness is like love. We know it’s something we do – we “give thanks.” But the calendrical consistency of the fourth Thursday in November is a discipline. Atomic clocks are said to be “disciplined” by their vibrating cesium atoms. Calendars are disciplined by rules last changed in 1752. And we are disciplined by our obedience to God’s design for us — to give thanks.
Give thanks to God in whatever is going on because your loving Heavenly Father designed you to give thanks. It’s good for you, and it honors Him. So if you’re looking for a short “Meditation for Preparation,” you can stop reading now.
…But maybe like me you’d like a little more than a witty science reference. Maybe, like me, you’d like to learn from somebody who knows what they’re doing. What made Paul give thanks?Â
We Thank God He is So Great that Even Trusting Him Makes People Famous
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. Romans 1:7-8 (ESV)
Our faith is our active confidence that God can be trusted. Paul was saying that the confidence in God held by the beleaguered Christians in Rome was actually famous around the world.
Every Sunday morning we are privileged to hear stories of the growing faith of people all over the world. These are people in places where gospel fervor has grown cold, and places where evangelism is forbidden or those who are harassed are growing to know and trust God.Â
Someone who doesn’t treasure God isn’t going to value the fact that others are trusting God. But Christians are called to Be Different. Can you join with Paul in thanking God that the stories of faith are being told?
Take a moment to think about how precious it is to know that God loves you, that He has adopted you, and that He adopts all who trust in Him. Thank Him for it.
We Thank God for Changing Our Hearts and Giving Us a New Master
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:17-18 (ESV)
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Romans 7:24-25 (ESV)
Imagine being a child born in a community during an active civil war. You may grow up in it and be required by your family and your teachers to participate in this war against the government of your country. Paul teaches that before someone knows and trusts in Jesus, they are forced to be in rebellion.Â
But when someone trusts in God, He changes them and releases them from this requirement to rebel. He teaches them through His Word and by His Holy Spirit. And He changes their hearts to live in obedience to their right, good King.
When this happens to us, these aren’t things we can achieve for ourselves. He makes us breathe and act in our energy to obey HIm, breathing the air He owns, energized by the food He provides, and empowered by the Spirit He gives. So we thank God for bringing it.
Someone who values their own autonomy, their own judgment, and their own freedom above all isn’t going to see how God frees us. We are called to Be Different. Can you join me in thanking God for freeing us from forced rebellion?
Take a moment to think about some temptation or destructive tendency you would be doing if it weren’t for God’s help. Thank Him for freeing you.
We Thank God for Making Good Things Happen
John Stott quotes J. I. Packer’s “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”:
In fact all Christian people believe in God’s sovereignty in salvation, even if they deny it. ‘Two facts show this,’ [Packer] writes. ‘In the first place, you give God thanks for your conversion. Now why do you do that? Because you know in your heart that God was entirely responsible for it. You did not save yourself; he saved you.
There is a second way in which you acknowledge that God is sovereign in salvation. You pray for the conversion of others … You ask God to work in them everything necessary for their salvation.’ So our thanksgivings and our intercessions prove that we believe in divine sovereignty. ‘On our feet we may have arguments about it, but on our knees we are all agreed.’
We know God is at work for our good and for the redemption of the whole world. Thanksgiving may be coming at a hard time for you. Maybe you struggle to see past the trials, or you’re working to pass on forgiveness.Â
But Thank God — He’s the one who enables you to trust Him not yourself.
Thank God — He walks with you through hard things, shaping you to be like Him.
He brings all the Good. He offers Himself, your Father and friend.
