Why is it truly meet right and salutary that we should at all times and all places give thanks to God.
Tomorrow we observe our long-standing National Day of Thanksgiving again. On this occasion, it is fitting to offer gratitude for all the blessings we have received from our gracious God throughout the year. As we prepare our hearts and minds to reflect on those things for which we ought to be grateful to the Lord, we ought first to understand what blessings are and how to spot them. If you cannot perceive the Lord resting a merciful and gracious hand on you in this fallen world, it is very hard to feel any sense of gratitude, much less give thanks.
As children, we all learned about that first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock. But for many of us, the details, which really do show the hand of God, may have been left out. That first winter, half the new settlers died. That was due to drought, plague, and a lack of understanding of how crops grow in the New World. Then a particular Indian named Squanto showed up. This remarkable Indian had become a Christian through Spanish monks while in slavery, subsequently captured by the British, but then allowed to return to his original village in 1619, which had been completely wiped out by disease. One year later, the Pilgrims showed up, settling in Squanto’s devastated village. Governor William Bradford wrote that Squanto “became a special instrument sent of God for [our] good… [he] never left us till he died.” It was Christian Squanto, not a multi-cultural experience of “native Americans” generally, who taught the Pilgrims how to farm. With Squanto’s help, the Pilgrims survived to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in 1621. It was survival for which they gave thanks – survival which came through the instrumental instruction of an amazing Christian Indian.
As the children of Israel were poised to enter the Promised Land after years of wilderness wandering, the Lord taught it was his faithfulness that sustained them during all the trying years of their wilderness wanderings. Yes, he would bring them into a land of milk and honey, but in the wilderness, the adversity and hard times, and the things that sustained them came from God’s bounty. The rude wilderness wandering and the manna, the water, the clothes that would not wear out; it was the mixed blessings of God that preserved them and made them ready to finally enter the Promised Land. He reminded them that we live not by bread alone, or even cake; we live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus repeated these words to the Devil in the wilderness, when for 40 days, even manna was not provided. In the Word of God, there is life. From it comes all blessings, and apart from it there is nothing.
Let’s take this to heart. Yes, we are to give thanks for all the milk and honey and their equivalents that he has graciously given to us, but let us also recount the shape and character of his blessings to us in the midst of adversity; the difficult times, the unknowns of how we will do without our expectations; the grim times when we know that it is only the Lord who has sustained us.
From God’s perspective, a blessing is either something he gives to us or an outcome that accords with his purposes according to his mercy.
Is it not true that we usually think of the blessings of the Lord in terms of the quantity and quality of the things that we are receiving or experiencing during our lives? Thus, when things are going well, when we are enjoying great bounty, we think of these times as being richly blessed. Conversely, when we experience want, when things are not going well for us, when we are experiencing deprivation and suffer from it, we may be tempted to think that his blessings are in short supply. We may wonder if God has forsaken us, or if we have fallen out of his favor. And it raises the question: Why is it truly meet right and salutary that we should at all times and all places give thanks to God as we say in the preface of the Communion liturgy? When we are experiencing what the apostle Paul said he experienced – being brought low, hungry, and in need – what is there in these times to give thanks? We need God’s perspective about what constitutes a blessing from him.
From God’s perspective, a blessing is either something he gives to us or an outcome that accords with his purposes according to his mercy. In other words, the Lord’s blessings are those things that he gives us or things that he accomplishes for our good, often by withholding his bounty for a time. He blessed the apostle Paul with given bounty and abundance, yet he also blessed him through hunger, suffering, adversity, and poor health by using these things to strengthen his faith. Paul grew in his awareness of the sufficiency of God’s grace and that his strength was being perfected in his weakness. And about these thing,s Paul is no exception. God is at work to bless you in the same ways. He blesses you in plenty, and he blesses you in want. He blesses you in adversity and in joyous times, in hunger and in bounty. He blesses you in the things he gives to you, and in the things that he accomplishes for your good when he chooses not to give to you. If the good things of this life do not lead to his desired outcomes according to his mercy, these are ultimately not blessings but tragedies.
Perhaps we need to give thanks to the Lord not only for what he gives us, but also for the things that he withholds. Yes, the Lord’s blessings are mixed. His blessing is what he gives and in what he withholds, in times of plenty and in times of adversity. And perhaps, in what he withholds he is enabling his strength to be made perfect in our weakness and building a healthy sense in us that his grace is all sufficient for us. His bounty is to be gratefully enjoyed, but never coveted, taken for granted, or made into your treasure.
May the Lord grant you the mind and heart to understand and appreciate that he often may grant you your greatest sense of thankfulness and gratitude for his blessings in the midst of your own poverty, adversity, and want as for the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and for the Israelites in the wilderness; keeping you mindful that all that you have and all that you are come only from his bountiful goodness. May we all on our National Day of Thanksgiving, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, and his mercy endures forever.
