Thankful

Thanksgiving is a reminder to me to be thankful in the Lord, not just on the fourth Thursday of each November, but day by day as I walk my pilgrimage. I struggle at times with discontentment and pray to be thankful in all circumstances. Discontentment is a dark fog that casts a shadow on the joy we have in Christ. Discontentment seeks its joy in gifts and providences, rather than in God.

Throughout the Bible, we see that believers are thankful in the Lord. There are countless passages about thankfulness and godly contentment. The Apostle Paul demonstrated thankfulness and wrote of it often in his Epistles, inspired by the Holy Spirit. I have included two passages from Paul’s Epistles below:

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7

The more we come to grips with our depravity and the depths of God’s love (which is immeasurable) the more thankful we become. I have seen in my life that when pride swells up, I am less thankful. Pride tells me I don’t need God as much as I do. God’s grace humbled Paul before him. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost”

We also see in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 that God used difficult providences to keep Paul from being overcome by pride. “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Like Paul, and all of God’s children, God’s grace humbles me before him. He chastens me and he ordained all providences in my life to work together for my good (Romans 8:28.)  God is my God and he will not allow me to worship others. He made his love known to me and he continues to shower his love upon me. He presses me to read his Word to hear how much he loves me. The Holy Spirit confirms to my soul that I’m a child of God, making me cry Abba Father (Romans 8:15-16.) My mind cannot wrap around it. Even in my most humble moments, I cannot grasp the totality of my neediness and God’s grace toward me. But I get a glimpse and I thank him. With a thankful heart I wrote this poem:

Idolatry brews in my heart

Your sword thrusts a sharp prick

Cutting away the weeds

I’m unfaithful like Ephraim

You bring me to my knees

I’m a wretch. You are holy

You’ve set your love on me

Oh that I could be where you are

That my sins may cease-

One day I’ll be home

Until then I’ll serve here
Your grace is sufficient

My sins are before me

But you paid the cost

Satan accuses

I’m at peace nonetheless

You condemn not

In Christ, I’m washed pure

A child, in wonder

I look to your throne

You chose me. You called me!

My thanksgiving abounds

Two scripture passages made reference to in this poem are Psalm 51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me and Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Also, the account of Ephraim can be found in the book of Hosea; Hosea tells of the wandering, sinful ways of God's people and God's everlasting love toward them. 

I would like to close with a prayer Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:14-20: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

May God grant his church eyes to see his love for us and the grace to keep our eyes fixed on him. How can we thank him enough for the gift of faith he has bestowed upon us? We cannot. But as Isaac Watts puts it, in his hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.