Thanksgiving as a Way of Life

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Dear Friends,

Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend. My understanding is that the heart of this tradition is that it is a harvest festival… the crops have been grown, harvested, and stored for the winter. Now it’s time to celebrate the fruitfulness of the land and a job well done. I hope that you have the opportunity to gather with loved ones and have a good meal and fellowship. It is good to have special times where we intentionally focus on the goodness of God and give thanks. I would invite you, however, to have Thanksgiving Day be a punctuation in an ongoing life of thanksgiving.

As Christians, we live in light of the Trinity. We believe in God the Creator who has provided us with our earth home to live in. We believe in God the Redeemer who in the person of Jesus Christ became human so that we might know of and be assured of God’s love for us. We believe in God the Holy Spirit who pulses through our very being and sustains, equips and guides us. Part of the reason we pray daily and gather weekly is to not let this good news become old news. By reminding ourselves, it gives us a different perspective to our whole lives.

When things are going well, it is easy to be thankful to God. As long as we don’t take God for granted, good weather, successful projects, delightful conversations, lasting friendships, good food, an easy commute, a passed test, a new toy, a hug from a loved one (and the list goes on) easily remind us of the goodness of God.

But what about when…

It’s 40 below…

Someone’s cut us off in traffic…

Our favorite hockey or football or baseball team loses (No, I don’t have any premonitions about the Blue Jays!) …

We have an unexpected expense…

Someone says something mean to us…

We come down with an illness…

The car won’t start…

Someone lets us down…

A loved one dies…

In times like these, gratitude is not the first emotion that we experience.

The quote above is from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. In his life of spreading the Gospel around the Mediterranean, he was stoned, jailed, chased out of towns, called a blasphemer, and shipwrecked. In fact, while he was writing this letter to the Philippians, he was sitting in prison. My impression of Paul was that he was no wall flower. He had a lot of passion and one can sense this in his letters. I’m sure that he got frustrated and disappointed but--because of faith--it never kept him down and he could trust in and give thanks for God’s blessings in any circumstance.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

And I invite you strengthen your gratitude muscle so that you may find and experience the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.

Peace,

Pastor Phil