Thanksgiving in the Tough Times
Cornwall
October 16, 2005
Where do you see yourself being with God? In what kind of environment do you believe it is that God views you? Because some times of our lives are not as delightful as others, it’s important for us to have a clear view of a certain reality, so we can face those times in a way that glorifies our Father, our Brother, and our Comforter Helper- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Psa.149.4- this tells us how God views us, as his children. This tells us that He delights in us- He takes great, incredible pleasure in us. He enjoys His people. This is an overarching ‘emotion’ that God feels toward us, as His children, and is a reality that we must be careful not to forget or overlook.
Psa.23- the Shepherd Psalm- declares, similarly, the way that God works with us, as His children. We all know this psalm, but it’s easy, in times of stress, trouble, and difficulty, to overlook the simple message of love, support, guidance, delight, and pleasure that this gives us of the view of our God toward each of us.
Last week, in Thanksgiving Sunday, we considered, together, the need to be proper stewards of thankfulness. That is easy when things are going well. When your hydro bill comes in less than you expect for a month, it’s easy to be thankful. When your children come home with good grades on mid-term exams, it is easy to be thankful. When you go through a day, or a week, without some of the normal pain that has come to be part of your life, it’s easy to be thankful. When you plan a shopping routine, thinking ahead about where you need to go, the order so you avoid line-ups and crowds, and everything goes according to plan, it’s easy to be thankful. In these situations, it’s easy to feel that we have the ‘stewardship of gratitude’ under control- that we have become godly in that regard, and to even be thankful for this apparent spiritual height having been achieved.
What about the other times? What about those times when your hydro bill is significantly greater than you expected in a month? What about the time when your children struggle, study, prepare, and still come up with a low grade on mid-term exams? What about when you have unrelenting pain and when the physical afflictions of your life go on and on and on? What about when you go shopping, having planned your route to avoid crowds, and everyone else made the same plan so you end up taking 3 hours for what you expected to complete in 1 ¼? What about those times when you know you aren’t doing very well with the ‘stewardship of gratitude’? What are you to do then? What are we to do then?
Today, we need to look at the reality of life and what God, who sees us banqueting with him constantly, wants us to do with this stewardship of gratitude. Are there times we’re meant to simply ‘take this stewardship of gratitude and shove it’? Are there times when we’re to accept that it’s fine to whine, complain, grumble, grouse, and be, generally, negative?
Let’s look at some passages that will help us with this tough reality of life.
First of all, please look at the calling of Saul, who became Paul. We know the story of the Damascus Road. We’re familiar with how he was struck down and had a very dramatic conversion, as some of us might have had. But there’s an element of his calling that we might neglect to give proper focus to, in our exulting in how Jesus was glorified in Paul’s conversion, which offers us hope for the pesky neighbour we might have, the surly cashier at Canadian Tire, the politician who seems to be so far from God and leads in government bills that seem to take us away from him, or the ungodly leaders of countries who seem to oppress their people.
Acts 9.10- 14, 15, 16- notice that suffering was to be reality in Paul’s life. For some reason, he was being called to suffer. This was part of his ministry. Certainly, he was to take the message- the gospel- to many strata of society of the time. But, in addition, he was to suffer for the name of Jesus. It wasn’t a gratuitous suffering. It wasn’t for no purpose or reason. It wasn’t suffering just thrown in to ‘teach him a lesson’. We don’t see any of that. He didn’t earn this calling to suffer because of the way he had treated the church prior to his conversion; again, there’s not even a hint of that. This was simply God’s will for his life and was part of the reality of Paul’s life.
So, we see it.
2 Cor.11.22-33- this all sounds like suffering.
2 Cor.12.7-10- this sounds like suffering. Some people have this weird idea that ministers have an easy time of it, that they/we don’t have any troubles, that they/we don’t have any suffering, and that life has a special golden glow for them/us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They/we simply don’t talk about this part of our lives all that much. However, there is strength drawn from it that is meant to flow in benefits to ‘our’ people who are sitting, banqueting with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in whom God delights. Paul had an interesting perspective on this- 1 Cor.4.9- he mused and wondered, and might have been correct in this.
Suffering was part of Paul’s life. That was part of his calling. Who is to say that it is not part of yours or mine? Also, the reality of life is simply that everyone suffers. That is the nature of living in a fallen world where everything is not set up in Kingdom ways. In fact, more and more, in a post-modern and post-Christian world, is set up quite opposite to God as people take on themselves the subjective reality of truth- of determining for themselves what truth is, leading to divergent ideas of what is appropriate. If you’re an expert and I’m an expert, and you see something one way and I see it another, then we have divergent views on reality. And if we believe that ‘your truth is as good as my truth’, then where are we? We’re in Canada in 2005, and this is the reality.
Please turn to Hebrews 11- let’s read the latter part of this chapter together.
v.30- 40. Does this sound like banqueting at the Lord’s Table? Does this sound like God was delighting in these forebears of our faith? Does this sound like God was taking them forward in life toward the Kingdom- yes! You see, the reality of life is that we live in such a world where circumstances and situations are not always to our liking. God has won, but Satan is still active and, as we see in the story of Job, often is given certain parameters in which he can operate, which puts him into our lives where we’d rather him not be.
However, remember: 1 Cor.10.13- such times bring us expressions of God’s confidence in us, even as Job had God’s confidence when he permitted Satan to go so far and no farther in his life.
All this brings us back to the ‘stewardship of gratitude’. Yes, without doubt, it’s easier to give thanks when things are going very well. However, how much of life does that apply to…really? Some days, it’s a lot. Other days, it seems like there’s not very much that goes just the way we want it to go. Some days, we seem to just ‘get by’. Some days, we seem to just ‘get through’. Some days, we hurt all day long. Some of us hurt all day long every day of every week. This is reality, and it’s important that we not give simplistic answers or promises that distort what God says and can lead to people’s having hopes raised. Paul had suffering as part of his reality. Paul had an illness/affliction/ailment that God did not intend to remove- it was not God’s will to remove it. Saints died horrible deaths, not because God was punishing them, or they had sinned, or because they didn’t have faith or they weren’t as close to God as others. As we go through history, we find this happened again and again. Sometimes, saints recanted, in order to save their lives, then, when persecution died down, they recanted their recanting and went back to church and some saints had a hard time with that- even ministers did this and were restored to ministry, leading to difficulties for Christians. Life, for the Christian, has potholes and hurdles which are part of our reality.
What are we to do with the stewardship of gratitude? Exercise it! Continue our stewardship.
Col.2.6-10- we have to be careful that no one takes our thanksgiving by reasons for why not to be thankful, or be attitude that makes it harder to be thankful. Don’t let anyone steal your joy. Don’t let anyone steal your thanksgiving. It’s not always easy, and sometimes I don’t know how to express gratitude to God. All of us know that it’s easy in the good times, and more difficult, usually, in the more difficult times. However, we’re to be grateful, nonetheless, because we know that we’re no less at the banqueting table when things are hurting and difficult than we are when they are simply rolling along wonderfully. We’re no longer being led by our shepherd when the waters are a little rough or stormy than when we see that they are still waters.
Being grateful stewards of gratitude when we lose, hurt, suffer, are taken advantage of, are oppressed, can’t express our faith publicly, are persecuted for conversion, or are dying is what our people around the world live with every day. Mostly, we keep gratitude before us. Sometimes we don’t and, even then, my guess is that God sees gratitude in our heart as the Holy Spirit responds, for us, as we ought to be responding (that’s just a speculation based on something declared in Romans 8.) In all things and in all times, we’re to be thankful, understanding that we are never, never, never not at that banqueting table with the Lord. Keep that reality before yourself as you go out into the next hour, day, week, and month, not knowing what it holds, but knowing that you are with God and He cares about you. With that reality, how can we do anything else but be grateful?!
