Give Thanks

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. It’s not just another Thursday, it’s a day when most of us won’t go to work and for many of us it is a paid day off. Most of us will gather with family and friends for a special meal and time together. Many will watch football and some will play football in parks and fields.
We eat a meal to remember a time of thanksgiving celebrated in 1621 by some of the first European immigrants and their indigenous neighbors. They had fled religious persecution in England, moving first to Holland and then to the new world. They were heading for Virginia but a storm pushed them to land off the coast of what is now Massachusetts. What might be seen as a problem was – in their worldview – seen as providence, God working in their circumstances. The pictures we see of the Pilgrims do not accurately convey the hardship they had suffered. Death had come to nearly every home, and many of the families that gathered were made up of a man who had lost his wife married to a woman who had lost her husband and their combined surviving children. In their hardship they gave thanks for God’s care and provision for them.
On October 3, 1789 George Washington called for a day of national thanksgiving in his Thanksgiving Proclamation. It says in part:
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced . . .
How far we have come.
As we gather on Thanksgiving Day we might think or even talk about what we are thankful for, but how much thinking or talking will be about who we are thankful to?
Romans 8:28 says: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
I know I’ve ripped this text from its massively rich context, but I do so to remind us that God is working. God is working in all things. God is working in all things for the good of those who are called by Him.
The Pilgrims knew this as they went through hardship from persecution by a state controlled church to travel across a very large ocean in a very small boat and faced the New England winters. Our founding fathers – not all of whom were Christians – knew this as they declared independence from England and established that independence with blood.
Here we are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of the Pilgrims and those who gave everything for liberty. Here we are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of our families for us. In all of this, God is working and if you are called by Him He is working for your good.
We have been going through hard times. We all know someone who is unemployed or underemployed. In this God is working. We all experience disease, either personally or in those we love. In this God is working. We all experience strained relationships. In this God is working. I could go on but I think you get what I am saying. In this world we will hardship and suffering, and God is working.
Is hardship and suffering all we experience? Absolutely not, though sometimes it feels that way. We also experience great joy and satisfaction, but if our joy and satisfaction is only in our experience it is misplaced. Our greatest joy and satisfaction is in Christ.
We don’t hear the word providence much anymore, but just because we quit talking about it doesn’t mean that God quit. He is working. God is not only our Creator, He is our Sustainer. In Christ God holds the universe together. Colossians 1:15-17 tells us that by Christ all things were created and in Him all things hold together. If He stopped, the universe would fly apart. That’s providence on a big scale, but that’s not where providence stops.
God’s providence affects every part of life. It is by common grace, grace given to all mankind, that the sun shines and the rain falls and food grows. Whether it is recognized or not it is by God’s grace that we have people to love and work to do and homes to live in. But what if we don’t have people to love or work to do or homes to live in? God is still sovereign and He is still good and He is still working.
Are you OK with that? Or do you think that if things aren’t “good” God must not be working? I’m afraid that many have an entitlement mentality about God. Many believe that because they are Christians God is obligated to make life easy. That’s not what Scripture teaches.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
God works all things together for good. That doesn’t mean that everything we experience will be good. When we are born again we receive a new heart, a new nature, but we continue to live in bodies corrupted by sin in a world corrupted by sin. We live with the effects of our sin and the sin of those around us; in this God is working all things together for good.
This Thanksgiving and always I encourage you to remember the One to whom you give thanks. God is good and is working all things together for the ultimate good, redeeming a people for himself who will be resurrected in sinless bodies and worship Him in the new earth where there will be no sin. Give thanks in your circumstances. Be thankful for what you have and what you don’t have. God is good and working all things together for good. If you are in Christ God is caring for you, but His work to conform you to the likeness of Christ does not guarantee ease and comfort in this life. He does guarantee that we will see Christ as He is because we will be made like Him in the resurrection.
Life can be hard, but God is always good. Have a blessed Thanksgiving. Ray