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Being Thankful

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by Geneva Mooney

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:15-17, NIV)

Thankfulness begins in our heart. What our mind, mouth and actions speak our heart says first: A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Luke 6:45). When life goes well it can be easy to respond out of thankfulness and in agreement with others, but what happens when life does not go well? When there are challenging circumstances or disagreements that rise up within us, how do you respond? Do you respond with a thankful heart full of grace and love; a heart full of unforgiveness, judgment and condemnation; or a heart full of anxiety and fear? When faced with a wound or hurt do you easily forgive, or do you hold onto that hurt like a child’s security blanket that has been weathered to the point of disrepair? It is not what happens to us that matters, it is how we respond in our hearts, because our words and actions are an expression of our heart. The heart is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23), and the Lord sees the heart.

The Lord is clear in His word on how we are to respond: Love! Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). But what if it is hard to love others when we are faced with those challenges and conflicts? First, we have a mighty Father who wants to do this in us. He wants to be a part of our brokenness, for us to be willing to look deep into our hearts with Him for the unforgiveness and judgments we may have in our hearts from childhood to today. Why?

Because if we do not forgive, we are not forgiven. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15). Forgiveness is not excusing the offense, forgetting, denying the hurt or anger, or trusting the offender. Forgiveness is remitting the punishment or canceling the debt – a work of God’s grace in our lives.

We should also bring past and present judgments to an end, because we are judged in the same way if we don’t. Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:1-2). Have you ever wondered why you might be just like your mother or father, in a negative way? Could it be judgment? Just in case you were not sure what judgment is, it’s a sinful reaction to hurt – condemning those who hurt us about what they have done and about who they are.

The good news? We have a big God who wants to partner with us and heal us from the inside out. He wants to heal our hearts so our mourning can turn into joy (Jeremiah 31:13), so we can embrace the life He has given us and be thankful for our lives even in the midst of pain. Our Father cannot violate free will, but He is there weeping with you, angry for you. His heart breaks over you. What was intended for evil He wants to use for good, but we must be willing to go into the deep places of our hearts, invite Him in and address those wounds.

We are all sinners in desperate need of a Savior who died on the Cross and was resurrected after three days for all humanity. Let’s take our unforgiveness, judgments and hurts to the Cross, reckoning them dead so that we can have new life. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood (Hebrews 12: 4). All suffering is meaningful when it is met with love and the resisting of sin.

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Thankfulness

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by Brian Waple 

“To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us—and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.”—Thomas Merton

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”—C. S. Lewis

As I listened to the various statements of thankfulness expressed this past Sunday, I found myself asking “What am I thankful for?” Am I thankful for my family, a job, my church, good health, a home? Of course I am. But on a deeper level, where have I been “grateful to recognize the love of God in everything,” or where have I been giving thanks even for bad fortune, “because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country”?

To be honest, I am barely thankful for the good things that happen, let alone the bad. When faced with challenging situations, it’s as though I have these blinders on that keep me focused on the problem at hand, rather than opening my field of vision to recognize where God might be working. With my lips I say, “God is in control,” but in my soul I’m saying, “God has let me down.” My heartfelt desire is to fully embrace the certainty that the love of God is in everything He gives me (good and bad), and to do that I have to ask myself questions such as “Where can I be thankful in this situation?” and “Where might God be using me in this situation?” And when I ask those questions, I am gently reminded to remove the blinders, surrender the situation to God, and take time to discern where and how He is working. And when I do that, I can see that in His gracious and loving mercy He is using the situation to create a redemptive work in me. And that is something I can be thankful for.

I want to express my sincere appreciation to all who spoke on Sunday. Your transparency and willingness to acknowledge your assurance in how God is working was truly a blessing. You are examples of what being thankful is all about. And for all of us, especially as we approach the Advent season, my prayer is that we would take time to reflect on what it is we are truly thankful for.

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Pray without Ceasing

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By Jeff Foerster

 

 

 

Pray without ceasing. What? This instruction blows my mind, my one-track mind. I don’t multitask. I don’t multitask because if I attempt it, something gets broken or someone gets hurt. For me, to “pray without ceasing” means becoming a monk and giving up driving a car, washing laundry, or even cooking a meal. I have about as much chance at successfully obeying this command as I do with “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Prayer is relational conversation.

Praying without ceasing makes a lot more sense when I consider that God is with me. He is with me as sure as a friend sitting across from me at a café or sharing a good meal at a restaurant. What do you talk about with others? You talk about how you’ve been spending your time, what happened while at work, what made you upset, that you couldn’t believe that guy in that car who did that thing or that woman in that place who said what she said—imagine her nerve! You sit around recalling that time that thing happened and you laugh ‘til tears stream down your face and your gut cries out for mercy. You share what makes you sad and what brings fear to your heart. You listen to what the other person thinks is important, and you wrestle with ideas and plans and hopes and dreams. You are in relationship.

What do you believe?

What do you believe about prayer? Not what you think—what you would tell me you believe. What do you actually believe? Do you know? To know, you must look to your actions, your “fruit.”

Here’s another way to say the same thing: How is your relationship with Jesus? I didn’t ask for your theology—what you think about Him, or what you believe about His sacrifice, as important as these are. I’m not asking you if you have prayed to receive His forgiveness, though without it there is no relationship. I am asking if you are close to Him, or if “distant” would be a more apt description. Is He called when you need something, when other avenues fail? Or do you talk to Him about everything? Do you share the triumphs and failings of the day as well as listen for His response, His questions, His leading? What would happen if you stopped talking with your spouse or your best friend for a day? A week? A month? Distance would grow, and your relationship would wither.

God is much more than any person you are connected to. He cares for you with greater passion and greater wisdom, and He knows you better than even you do. He is more than a resource for you to employ. He is heaven itself, in a person. To pray without ceasing means to lean into relationship with Jesus, with the Spirit, with the Father. Brian Sharpe spoke of A.C.T.S. in the Sunday sermon as a tool to help engagement in prayer, conversation starters. These concepts are found in the Scriptures—sometimes referred to as God’s love letters to humanity. In these, God woos us with His undying love with which He died for us. Time and again His message is one of control—He’s got it and I can let it go. The plan was formed long ago before the first of us were formed from earth. We are His beloved creations to whom He has endowed the right to become His children. God has engaged us; He made the first move, but an intimate relationship requires 100% from both—what will you do?

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Marvel

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by Brian Waple

Last week I had the opportunity to drive across the country with an old friend. We were transporting some family heirlooms from my stepmother’s house in Virginia to Puyallup. It was 2,755 miles … 14 states … 5 days. I kept a log every day, and some of my entries are as follows:

Stopped in Danville, Illinois for the night … sat in the parking lot that evening and watched a lightning storm as it completely filled the sky.

Driving through the state of Iowa, I saw hundreds of cornfields covering wide rolling hills.

In South Dakota, we took some group selfies with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln at Mt. Rushmore.

Passed several herds of pronghorn antelope and even saw Devil’s Tower in the distance before entering Wyoming.

Passing through Butte, Montana, we saw Our Lady of the Rockies, a 90-foot concrete statue of the Virgin Mary, nestled high up in the mountains atop the Continental Divide and dedicated by the people of Butte to women everywhere, especially mothers.

Crossed into Idaho and marveled at the expanse of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

It was as though a whole new world opened up for me and I was captivated by the sights, many of which I’ve never seen before.

It’s interesting that we are filled with wonder and awe at all the new things we see, but what about the things we see every day and take for granted, or don’t even take time to think about? Sure, we can sculpt heads out of a mountainside, but who created the internal forces that gave birth to those mountains? We can plant and harvest hundreds of acres of corn, but who created and orchestrates nature so that those corn seeds can take root and grow? We can stand in amazement at lightning filling an evening sky, but who created the vast sky in the first place for that light show to perform?

In the Bible we read: “In the beginning, God ….” Everything that follows those four words is truly a marvel. This trip made me think about how I view God and how I view the majesty of His creation. It made me question whether I take time to actually notice and be thankful, especially in this beautiful area of the country in which we live. I know that I don’t always appreciate God’s hand in what I see, and I should.

What about you? What have you seen recently in His creation that caused you to notice and give thanks? Perhaps we could take a few moments daily to give Him thanks for the beauty that surrounds us.

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The Ordinary Things

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By Brian Waple

As I sit here pondering what I’m going to write, it occurred to me that it is in the ordinary things that we find God. Now, this is not to say that God isn’t present in the spectacular and majestic and extraordinary—He most certainly is. But, as we go through our days, as routine as they are, we have opportunities to see God working. And we have the privilege of joining Him in those things, being present to what He is doing, and being a part of the blessing that comes from Him. And when we think about that, shouldn’t we be thankful?

I was having breakfast with my son the other day. We talked about some pretty nasty events going on in the world and how things seem to be verging on the chaotic and hopeless. As we were speaking, I was reminded that God is in all of that, the good and the bad, just as He is present in our conversation. And then it dawned on me like a lightbulb turning on—be thankful. Be thankful for the opportunity to spend the morning with my son and speak with him of things secular and spiritual; be thankful that he has a good, reliable car and is willing to do all the driving around Seattle on a wet Saturday morning (Praise God for that!); be thankful that he is happy with his life and is able to take care of himself and is respected for what he does; be thankful that Cindy and I have a weekly opportunity to spend the day with our granddaughter and be a part of her growing and developing; be thankful that she has parents who love each other; be thankful that there is no strife in my immediate family and that we get along really well. And be thankful that God loves me so much that He has blessed me with an incredible wife who cares about me, looks after me, and is willing to spend the rest of her life with me.

These are things I normally take for granted—these ordinary, some would say insignificant, non-Facebook worthy things. But they are moments when God speaks to us in the ordinary and shows us how much He loves us and how much we really are blessed. And our attitude should be one of thanks. In his book The Voice of Jesus, Gordon T. Smith writes, “Gratitude is fundamental for the Christian believer because through thanksgiving we open our hearts to the Spirit of God” (p. 85). Wouldn’t it be a shame to close our hearts off to the generous blessings of the Spirit of God simply because we refuse to be grateful?

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT). During your day, take a moment to think about how God is being present to you and blessing you in the ordinary things. And then take some time to give thanks.

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The Most Valuable Thing My Minivan Taught Me

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By Nate Champneys

When your minivan has 265,000 miles on it, you can be grateful for anything that works!My minivan has 265,000 miles on it and, as you would expect, it has many things wrong with it. One thing that I have taken for granted for years and that has stopped working in the last year or so is the heat controls. The heat controls are digital, and the control panel has completely stopped working, so the only thing I can control now is the fan speed. But intermittently the control will come back to life. Most of the time we get into our car and we just expect things to work and we forget the blessing that a simple thing like heat can be until it’s gone. But when my heat control works in my car occasionally, it is a cause for celebration and thanksgiving.

I have lived with my heat control the way it is for about a year, but this past summer, when the weather turned hot, it was not fun to live without A/C. Here is a crazy story—on the first day of the summer heat, I turned on my car and, lo and behold, everything worked, and I had some relief from the heat. My A/C continued to work all summer long, until the days turned cool and then, just as it had come to life, all the lights went dark, and I was back to only having fan control. But let me tell you, every day through the summer when I turned on my car and had wonderful cool air came out the vents, I thanked God for the gift of A/C. In the same way now that winter has come, although my heat control is not working, the system is “stuck” on heat. So, I can turn on the fan and have heat. It’s funny, now, every time I turn on my car and the heat comes on I thank God for the heat in my car.

It’s funny how such a stupid little thing, when taken a way and then restored, can be such a cause for thanksgiving. I began to think, why wait until something is taken away and then returned before thanking God for it? This has caused me to look around my life the last few months for the many little gifts God gives to me every day that I take for granted. When we look around at our lives through the lens of looking for the thousands of blessings God has given us, it really changes our perspective when we complain or worry about the things that we don’t have. God has given us a thousand and one gifts every day that we don’t even thank Him for.

In this Christmas season of giving, we give gifts because of the amazing gift God gave us through His Son, Jesus. But do we take time to recognize all the other gifts he is giving us right now? The clothes you are wearing right now. The laundry soap and water you used to wash them. The dresser you keep them in. The computer or smartphone you are reading this blog post on. The roof over your head right now. The light on the ceiling with electricity making it turn on. The heater that is heating the room where you currently sit. We are not owed any of these things, yet He has provided all of them to us while many people across the world do not have any of these things.

The Christmas season for many is a time of worrying about what gift to get for each person we care about and how we are going to pay for it. I encourage us all to take a moment and look around for the gifts that He is giving to you as you go throughout your day.

James 1:17—“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

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