Thanks
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what
happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. (1 Thess. 5:16-18)
I'm thankful for Apples. We have a bowl of them on the kitchen counter –
recently hand-plucked from an orchard in Julian that Sandy and I stumbled onto while
on an adventure with our dogs on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Truth is, I
don’t know whether to eat the apples or treat them like the museum pieces they
are since we paid $10.00 for those beauties. But we enjoyed the experience; it
was kind of like going to an amusement park in an outdoor health food store.
Bald spots. I was standing in line at a convenience store when
I spotted one on the security screen. “That guy’s losing his hair,” I thought. Then
I realized that guy was me. My bald are
and thinning spots are spreading like a rain puddle. Funny, the hair that’s
leaving my head is showing up on my ears. Generally the right area, just the wrong
part of the anatomy. So, maybe I’m not losing my hair after all – it’s just changing
neighborhoods.
Chocolate starts with a “C.” So today I'm thankful for
chocolate. Chocolate cookies, candy, cakes, and shakes. Chocolate would've kept
Adam and Eve away from the tree, and the sailors happy on the Bounty. Then there’s Dictionaries. Someone has to define words, right? If d-o-g
meant "cat" to you and "rat" to me, we wouldn't know which one
to catch and which one to pet. I'm thankful for dictionaries. And I'm thankful
for Exercises like this one. Alphabetize your blessings.
Rather than catalog your burdens, why not itemize your benefits? It dawns on me
now that Danielle begins with a “D,” too. So, the next time I make my list, my daughter
will trump “dictionary.” Which, by the way, is a part of the lesson of this exercise
– a person never runs out of reasons to say "Thanks."
Thanks. Just the word lifts the
spirit. To say thanks is to celebrate a gift. Something. Anything. Apples. Bald
spots. Chocolate. Dictionaries and Danielle. To say thanks is to cross the
tracks from “have-not” to “have-much,” from the excluded to the recruited. “Thanks”
proclaims, "I'm not disadvantaged, disabled, victimized, scandalized,
forgotten, or ignored. I am blessed." Gratitude is a dialysis of sorts. It
flushes the self-pity out of our systems. In Scripture, the idea of giving
thanks is not just a suggestion or recommendation; it’s a command. It carries
the same weight as "love your neighbor" and "give to the
poor." More than a hundred times, either by imperative or example, the
Bible commands us to be thankful. So, if quantity implies gravity, God takes
thanksgiving seriously. And I think that’s because ingratitude may have been the
original sin.
Adam and Eve had a million reasons to
give thanks. The waterfalls and fowl, shorelines and sunsets. God found Eden so
delightful, he strolled through it in the cool of the day. (Gen. 3:8) Adam and
Eve found the garden so safe, they wore no clothing. (Gen. 2:25) They had
nothing to hide, and no one to hide from. They lived in a perfect world. One
with creation, one with God, one with each other. Eden was a
"one-derful" world. Press your ear against the early pages of
Genesis, and you'll hear Eden in concert. But then came the snake. Satan
slithered into the garden. He raised a question about the forbidden tree. Adam
and Eve could eat from all the others, but Satan focused on the single fruit
they weren’t to touch. "'Eat it,' he hissed, 'and you will be like God.'"
(Gen. 3:5) And just like that, Eden wasn’t enough. It was enough, mind you. Ecological harmony. Relational purity.
Spiritual peace. Adam and Eve had all they would ever need. God had told them,
"I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all
the fruit trees for your food." (Gen. 1:29) They had their very own
produce section.
"But there could be more . . .
," suggested the devil, gesturing to the shiny, glimmering delicacy that
lay just across the boundary line. And with that thought Eve felt the first
flush of discontent. Rather than ponder the garden of fruit she had, she examined
the one fruit God forbade. Discontent moved in like a bully on the block.
What if gratitude had won the day?
Suppose an un-bedazzled Adam and Eve had scoffed at the snake's suggestion.
"Are you kidding me? Begrudge the one thing we can’t eat? Have you seen
this place? Strawberry fields. Melon patches. Orange groves. Blueberry bushes. We’ll
take you on a tour, snake. We’ll show you what God has given to us." Had
they chosen gratitude, would the world be different? And if you choose
gratitude, will your world be different? Oh, the hissing we hear. Don't you want more? More horsepower.
More gigabytes. More legroom. More testosterone. The great white whale of want
swims our waters like Moby Dick. But
God has given us, like Ahab, a harpoon: gratitude. So, thank you, Lord, for . .
.
Figs. Figs grow on the Ficus
tree which is a member of the Mulberry family. I have a fruitless Mulberry
in my backyard. I guess that explains why I don’t have figs. Golf – that I play it so poorly, I can make others look great.
Heaven. I mentioned heaven last week at the funeral of a friend.
Loved ones asked, and I told them, "You’ll see her in heaven."
Extract heaven from the human story, and I am mute. I have nothing to offer.
Include it, and gratitude appears – even at a graveside service. "Give
thanks in everything," Paul said. (1 Thess. 5:18) In everything? In trouble, in the hospital, in a
fix, in a mess, in distress? Yes, even in Interruptions.
Jesus did.
When five thousand people interrupted
his planned retreat, Jesus took them out to lunch. "Then he told the
people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish and,
looking to heaven, he thanked God for the food." (Matt. 14:19)
Jesus was robustly thankful. He was thankful when Mary interrupted the party
with perfume; when he hugged children and blessed babies and watched blind
people look at their first sunsets, Jesus was thankful. When the disciples
returned from their first mission trip, he rejoiced: "I thank You, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth." (Luke 10:21) Thank you, Jesus, for modeling gratitude. And thank you, King Jesus, for taking charge, for working all things together
for good. Thank you for letting Love happen because I’m on the lookout
for reasons to be grateful, I spotted love today. It was the weathered and
intertwined hands of an elderly couple in the grocery store. Look for love, and
you'll find it. Look for Miracles, and you'll find them too.
Rebecca did.
She has spent the last three years in
pain. "On a scale of one to ten," the doctor explained, "she’s a
twelve every day." Rebecca's pancreas has shut down. After a dozen
operations and changes in medication, no solution is in sight. Pretty tough
challenge. But Rebecca is a tough kid. She’s ten years old. She has fudge-brown
hair, eyes that sparkle, and a weatherproof smile. A covey of stuffed animals occupy
the couch, and a miracle book sits next to her. It's a spiral notebook, edges
weathered, adorned with crayoned flowers, stars and an occasional clown. In the
handwriting of a child, she writes about miracles like these: "I slept all
night last night." "Daddy snuck a puppy into the hospital."
"Mommy is going to put a Christmas tree in the corner." Her body is
in revolt. Her parents are concerned. The doctors are confused. But Rebecca has
made a decision – she’s going to thank God for miracles. And if Rebecca can
find reasons to say thanks, can't I?
Then, of course, there’s Naps. The miracle
that happens on a couch on Saturday afternoons. And “Oh," as in "Oh, that’s beautiful." "Oh,
it's a girl." "Oh, that tastes great." I've never said thanks
for all the oh’s – which is a shame
because there’s a lot of “oh’s.” Then there are Ponds: flat circles
of moisture, and Queens, New York. I ate Korean food
there one July day and met the nicest people. Never thought to thank God for
them until now. Then there’s Running water. Hot showers. Flowing
faucets. Flushing toilets. I'm never more than a few strides from good plumbing.
Gratitude turns every shower into a celebration. Nothing silences grumps like
gratitude. And I’ve read about some grumps: the Israelites. "They began to
speak against God and Moses. 'Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here
in the wilderness? . . . And we hate this horrible manna!'" (Num. 21:5)
Had they forgotten God's deliverance? The Red Sea became a red carpet. Manna
fell like silver dollars. They danced the Jubilee jig and carried Moses on
their shoulders. They were grateful at first. But with the passage of time,
ingratitude took over. So they bellyached.
They complained about the room
service and pool temperature. It wasn't enough to escape slavery; they wanted
mani’s, pedi’s, and facials. They turned sour and dour. So, God responded with
an object lesson for the ages. He unleashed snakes into their camp. Scaled
vermin slid through their tents. Toxic fangs everywhere. Shades of Eden. The
symbolism is inescapable. Ingratitude is a devil's brew. It will kill you. Many
were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and cried out, "We
have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will
take away the snakes." So Moses prayed for the people. “Then the LORD told
him, ‘Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are
bitten will live if they simply look at it!’ So Moses made a snake out of
bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could
look at the bronze snake and be healed!” (vv. 6-9) Shades of the cross. The symbolism
is inescapable
The cure for ingratitude? Looking up.
Behold the dead snake on the pole. Lift up your eyes. Look what God has done.
The snake is defeated. Look up. The Son of Man has come. Look up. You have a Savior, forgiving sin. You have Triumph over death.
A Universe reclaimed. A Victory that no one
can take. God's solution to any challenge is simply this: a grateful spirit. No
mist is so thick that the sunlight of appreciation can’t burn it away. And
who’s the real victor in life, anyway? Isn’t it the person who dies with a
thankful and hope-filled spirit? And how do we die with gratitude? We live with
it. We thank God for the Walks with friends. X-rays, xylophones, and the extra grace God gives when we run
out of words that start with “X.”
I read about an attorney who, some
time ago, won a big case for his client. The two men celebrated with a nice
dinner, and at the end of the meal, the client handed the lawyer a beautiful wallet
made of Moroccan leather. "Please accept this as a token of my appreciation."
The attorney resisted. "No, I can't settle for a wallet. My fee is
$500." The client looked at the attorney, shrugged his shoulders and said,
"Whatever you say." Whereupon he opened the wallet and extracted two
$500 bills. He reinserted one and handed the lawyer the wallet.
So, don't be too quick in your
assessment of God's gifts to you. Thank him. Moment by moment. Day by day.
Thank God for Yellow-bellied flycatchers and Zebras, too. Thank God for everything – then start a new list.
Grace,
Randy
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