Change of Pace
I don’t know about you, but the race through this fall has been exhausting. We are weeks away from Thanksgiving, and I can barely remember what happened in September. It’s all a blur and I’m ready for things to slow down. If you’re at all like me, you may be at the point in the season where you realize both how tired you are, and also how much you need to reset your focus. It’s time to change the pace!
The season of Thanksgiving reminds us to do just that. The Israelites were constantly in need of the same reminders. For them, the festivals and reciting the Psalms became the manner of remembering and giving thanks. For the next few weeks, we’ll use the same strategy. Thanksgiving (the act, not the holiday) reminds us that we don’t depend on ourselves. For Christians, it reminds us that we depend on God. When we stay too busy, rely on our powers of planning, our strength, our family or friends, or worse, allow our pride to convince us we’re in control of the chaos, we lose perspective on where our strength comes from. When we take time to thank God, we acknowledge our dependence and reset our focus away from the reliance we place on ourselves.
And yet, our trust can be shaken when we depend on God but it seems He doesn’t come through. There are many instances in our lives where we have given proper weight to God’s role in our lives, only to find that our situation hasn’t changed, or even gotten worse. I think about persistent mental illness, or relationships that broke, or physical pain that won’t go away. We can certainly be tempted to look at our circumstances and not want to be thankful for them. In many of the worst cases, we don’t need to be.
In fact, we need to spend less time being thankful “for” things. If our circumstances are always the barometer of our thankfulness, some of us might not find a reason to be thankful. No, to build trust in God, the focus of our thanksgiving cannot be solely on situations and outcomes, but on God’s mercy that extends to us at all times. It’s thankfulness for His goodness, His faithfulness, His covenant love. It’s thankfulness for His promise to be near, restore, and redeem, even when we back ourselves into situations we know we shouldn’t. And for those situations that happen without our own making, we thank God that He loves us, that He sees us, and that despite the struggle and how we feel, He’s faithful.
Paul’s words from First Thessalonians may have sprung into your mind, and they make the point. “In everything give thanks. (1 Thes. 5:18)” Notice, not “for” everything, but “in” everything. As Dr. Tony Evans points out, giving thanks “in” and not “for” everything could unleash a whole new perspective and change your life. Paul says elsewhere how he’s learned to be content with everything. The only way to do that was to recognize that he belonged to God. He was completely dependent on God and trusted Him with His whole life. No matter the situation, he was content and He gave thanks to God “in” all of it!
As we enter into this season of Thanksgiving, let’s remind ourselves of our dependence on God by being thankful to and for Him. Let’s give thanks in spite of anything that would seek to discourage us. As you process and consider this, I encourage you to slow down and read Psalms 103 - 107. We’ll be unpacking Psalm 107 together on Sunday. These Psalms will remind us of things we can be thankful for, and hence our dependence on God. If you’re particularly dry, cry out to the Lord for help. He is listening. May we one day be able to say with the Psalmist David, “My heart is confident in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises with all my heart! (Psalm 108:1)”
Blessings on the Journey
Pastor Scott