Thank You.

Thank You 
A prayer by Michel Quoist:

We must know how to say, “Thank You.”

Our days are filled with the gifts the Lord showers on us. If we were in the habit of taking stock of them, at night we should be like a “queen for a day,” dazzled and happy with so many blessings.

We should then be grateful to God, secure because he gives us everything, joyful because we know that every day he will renew his gifts.

Everything is a gift from God, even the smallest things, and it’s the sum of these gifts that makes a life beautiful or sad, depending on how we use them.

“All good giving and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of the lights of heaven. With him there is no variation, no play of passing shadows.” (James I, 17)

Thank you, Lord, thank you.
Thank you for all the gifts you have given me today,
Thank you for all I have seen, heard, received.

Thank you for the water that woke me up, the soap that smells good, the toothpaste that refreshes. Thank you for the clothes that protect me, for their color and their cut.
Thank you for the newspaper so faithfully there, for the comics (my morning smile), for the report of useful meetings, for justice done and big games won.

Thank you for the street-cleaning truck and the men who run it, for their morning shouts and all the early noises.

Thank you for my work, my tools, my efforts.

Thank you for the metal in my hands, for the whine of the steel biting into it, for the satisfied look of the supervisor and the load of finished pieces.

Thank you for Jim who lent me his file, for Danny who gave me a cigarette, for Charlie who held the door for me.

Thank you for the welcoming street that led me there, for the shop windows, for the cars, for the passers-by, for all the life that flowed swiftly between the windowed walls of the houses.

Thank you for the food that sustained me, for the glass of beer that refreshed me.

Thank you for the car that meekly took me where I wanted to be, for the gas that made it go, for the wind that caressed my face and for the trees that nodded to me on the way.

Thank you for the boy I watched playing on the sidewalk opposite, Thank you for his roller-skates and for his comical face when he fell.

Thank you for the morning greetings I received, and for all the smiles.

Thank you for the mother who welcomes me at home, for her tactful affection, for her silent presence.

Thank you for the roof that shelters me, for the lamp that lights me, for the radio that
plays, for the news, for music and singing.

Thank you for the bunch of flowers, so pretty on my table.

Thank you for the tranquil night.
Thank you for the stars.
Thank you for the silence.
Thank you for the time you have given me.
Thank you for life.
Thank you for grace.
Thank you for being there, Lord.

Thank you for listening to me, for taking me serioulsy, for gathering my gifts in your hands to offer them to your Father.

Thank you, Lord,
Thank you.

Free....but much more that just free.

From Tullian Tchvidjian's blog:

During a recent radio interview, the interviewer told me a story that gets to the heart of how grace transforms.

He was a camp counselor one summer and one of his responsibilities was to go around with another counselor and check the cabins every morning while the students were at breakfast. In order to motivate them to keep their cabins clean, awards were given at the morning assembly to the students who had the cleanest cabin. One morning the counselors walked into one of the cabins only to discover that it had been intentionally trashed. The students thought it would be funny to “break the law” and do the exact opposite of what they had been asked to do. Clothes everywhere. Food all over the floor. Words written on the bathroom mirrors with soap. Wet towels balled up in every corner. The place was a complete disaster.

The two counselors were speechless. The one looked at the other and asked, “What should we do?” After pausing for a moment, the guy who was interviewing me finally answered, “Let’s clean it up.” His buddy looked at him like he was crazy: “Clean it up? Are you kidding? These punks need to be punished! I’m not cleaning up their mess.” The other one said, “Well, I’m going to clean it up. And by the time I’m done with it, these kids will win the award today for the cleanest cabin.” After some moaning and groaning, his buddy decided to help him. They cleaned the whole cabin while the students were at breakfast. Picked up and folded all the clothes, scrubbed all the soap off the bathroom mirrors, vacuumed up all the food, made all the beds, and hung all the wet towels up to dry on the clothes line right outside the cabin. Then they left without saying a word to anyone.

When the students came back from breakfast, thinking they had pulled off a great prank, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They were the ones who were now speechless. They initially thought they were now going to be in double trouble. They sheepishly made their way to the morning assembly. When the award for the cleanest cabin was announced and they won, they couldn’t believe it. Instead of being punished, they were rewarded. They all found the two counselors who had cleaned up their wrecked room and begged for forgiveness. And, according to the guy who was interviewing me, those boys kept the cleanest cabin for the rest of the week.

What those boys experienced was what theologians call “double-imputation.” Not only did someone else bear their punishment (having to clean up the miserable mess they made) but they were rewarded for someone else’s “righteousness.” As my friend Scotty Smith recently said, “The gospel isn’t merely the absence of all condemnation; it’s also the fullness of God’s delight lavished on us in Christ.”

And notice…the result of this irrational act of grace toward these boys was NOT worse behavior. It was sorrow and transformation. These punks were punk’d by grace…and they would never forget it.

I close my book Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels with a story (not sure if this really happened or is simply parabolic) from Civil War days before America’s slaves were freed, about a northerner who went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, the man turned to the girl and told her, “You’re free.”

With amazement she responded, “You mean, I’m free to do whatever I want?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And to say whatever I want to say?”

“Yes, anything.”

“And to be whatever I want to be?”

“Yep.”

“And even go wherever I want to go?”

“Yes,” he answered with a smile. “You’re free to go wherever you’d like.”

She looked at him intently and replied, “Then I will go with you.”

Many fear that the grace-delivered, blood-bought, deliverance of radical freedom will result in loveless license. But as the two stories above illustrate, redeeming unconditional love alone (not law, not fear, not punishment, not guilt, not shame) carries the power to compel heart-felt loyalty to the One who gave us (and continues to give us) what we don’t deserve (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Too Harsh?

Basil of Caesarea wrote: 

“When someone steals a person’s clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to those who need it; the shoes rotting in your closet to the one who has no shoes. The money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”

Saying Grace

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
            ― G.K. Chesterton

Blessed

Paul ran from Christ; Christ pursued and overtook him.  Paul resisted Christ; Christ disarmed him.  Paul persecuted Christ; Christ converted him.  Paul was an alien; Christ made him a member of the family.  Paul was an enemy; Christ made him a friend.  Paul was ‘in the flesh’; Christ set him ‘in the Spirit.’  Paul was under the law; Christ set him in grace.  Paul was dead; Christ made him alive to God.  How does one give reasons for this?  He does not give reasons; he sings,  "Blessed be God who blessed us . . . even as he chose us in him.”

Lewis B. Smedes, Union With Christ (Grand Rapids, 1983), pages 86-87.

Bread

By Allan R. Bevere

Many years ago on a mission trip in Haiti, our group was ministering in the isolated mountains in the west near the Dominican Republic. They village where we stayed was where the road ended. To say it was a “road” was an exaggeration. Early one Sunday morning, we mounted horses and made our way to another village, even more remote, to worship with the believers there. We gathered with them in their sanctuary, a rectangular banana leaf hut. The worship was quite meaningful even though none of us understood Creole. Nevertheless, we didn’t need to speak their language to know that God was being worshiped and Jesus was being glorified.

After worship we gathered at the pastor’s house, a small hut, and we were served dinner. Some of us noticed that none of our Haitian brothers and sisters joined us, but for some reason we didn’t think to ask. We ate a variety of foods and when we were finished, we were quite satisfied.

Later in the day when we were on our way back to the village of our temporary residence, the missionary who was hosting us told us something that made the rest of the trip quite quiet. He informed us that our Haitian brothers and sisters of the village had given up their daily meal, the food they had for that day, so that we could eat. They had given up their daily bread so that we could have ours.

Do we really understand what it means to ask God for our daily bread? We who have more bread than we need? Somewhere, I can’t remember, Bishop William Willimon reminds us that most of us have in the affluent West have more bread than we need. Indeed, more of us in the affluent West will die of too much bread rather than too little bread. How serious can we be when we pray each Sunday, “Give us this day our daily bread?”

I have no doubt when the brother in Christ in Haiti utters that line in prayer, it means something very different from when I pray it. I am sure that when the sister in Jesus offers that request to God in Ethiopia, it is sincere in a way that I cannot fathom. When I say, as I do every Sunday along with the rest of the congregation, “Give us this day our daily bread,” how desperate, and therefore, how sincere am I, in what I say?

Is it possible for me to understand what it means to ask God only for the bread I need for today, when I have bread in the freezer at home? Perhaps, when I ask God for my daily bread each week, such words should remind me of how I must give out of my abundance so that others, who pray the same words, will receive the bread they need just for the present day.

May I be so willing to give up my daily bread, so that others will receive theirs.

Sacrifice

“The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.  Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.  Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.”

 
— John Stott
The Cross of Christ

Why I’m Ungrateful

This is from Russell Moore who is Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

 

“If I hear the word ‘Daddy’ again, I’m going to scream!”

I heard myself saying those words. And, in my defense, it was loud around here. I was trying to work on something, and all I could hear were feet pounding down the stairs with four boys competing with one another to tell me one thing after another. I just wanted five minutes of silence.

My vocal chords were still vibrating when an image hit my brain. It was the picture of me, on my face, praying for children. The house was certainly quiet then. And in those years of infertility and miscarriage and seemingly unanswered prayers, I would have given anything to hear steps on that staircase. I feared I would never hear the word “Daddy,” ever, directed to me. Come to think of it, I even wrote a book about the Christian cry of “Abba, Father.”

And now I was annoyed. Why? It wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about the blessing of children. It was that my family had become “normal” to me. In the absence of children, the blessing was forefront on my mind. But in their presence, they’d become expected, part of what I expected from my day-to-day existence. And that’s what’s so dangerous.

Gratitude is spiritual warfare. I’m convinced my turn of imagination that day was conviction of sin, a personal uprooting of my own idolatry by the Spirit of Christ. What I need to fear most is what seems normal to me.

We’re all, in some way or other, in the same place the people of Israel were in in Joshua 23 and 24. Joshua, their warrior-leader, stands before them and recounts all the blessings God has given, reminding them that “not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord God promised concerning you” (Josh. 23:14a). Joshua said, “All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed” (Josh. 23:14b).

And yet, as Joshua foretold (and Moses before him), the people would soon be in the land of olive trees and wine presses. These things, what they’d cried for in the wilderness, would soon seem “normal” to them. And, soon enough, they’d crave more and more, so much so that they’d chase after Canaanite idols to get what they wanted.

This is what some philosophers call “hedonic adaptation.” We tend to adjust to the level of happiness or prosperity we have. We grow to expect it, to not even notice it. And then we want more. That’s why it’s so hard for people to come down in standard of living. It’s easy to move from a studio apartment to a two-story house, but it’s awful to do the reverse. Few people have a problem going from a 1985 Ford Fairmont to a brand new BMW, but it’s incomprehensible to go the other direction.

This is the way of all flesh, as it is pulled toward the abyss by the satanic powers. It is always so. The garden of Eden becomes mere vegetation for blinded humans in the beginning. The mountains and caves become mere covering for blinded humans in the end.

The Spirit of Christ draws us toward gratitude because the Spirit convicts us of our creatureliness. We’re dependent on breath, on bread, on love, and these things come, personally, as gifts from a Father (Jas. 1:17).

Is there anything in your life that you’ve grown accustomed to? Is there something you prayed for, fervently, in pleading in its absence that you haven’t prayed for, fervently, in thanksgiving in its presence? There’s several such things in my life, and, I fear, many more that I don’t even think about.

I’m typing this at the kitchen table. I was just interrupted by Moore boys wrestling for the last Little Debbie Cake in the pantry. As soon as I heard “Daddy,” I looked up, even in writing this article, in frustration. But the Spirit still crucifies, still resurrects.

Thank You.

Where are the Nine?

From Kevin DeYoung 

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising god with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” (Luke 17:15-17)

Everyone reading this blog has reason to give praise to God. The question is whether we will go on our thankless way like the rest of the former lepers, or turn around and fall at Jesus’ feet like the Samaritan. 

Are you part of the one or one of the nine?

I find it easy to ask God for things.  I find it relatively easy to confess sin, perhaps because I have so much of it and feel guilty for it.  It is harder for me to give thanks, not because I think I’m too proud to say thank you, but because I don’t have my eyes open to see all that God has done and is doing.

All of us, I imagine, got sick in the past year.  And almost all of us got better.  Have we given thanks?  If we are getting sicker, maybe even approaching death, have we given thanks for the grace to make it this far and for the grace that will lead us home?

There is so much God has done for us: jobs, paid our bills, paying our bills at church, safe travel, safe surgeries, miraculous provision for little babies over the past year.  We’ve had good test results, open doors, and unexpected blessings.  Have we thanked God?

Did you sleep last night?  Did your kids?  Will you eat tomorrow?  Have you seen people recently converted?  Are their relationships in the process of being healed?  Did you sell your house or get married or finish school?  Have you enjoyed the encouragement and support of the church?  Have you enjoyed laughter and sympathy with friends?  We’ve known guilt. We’ve received grace. Will we live out gratitude?

We aren’t all blessed in the same ways. But we all have been blessed in innumerable ways. Some return to Jesus with praise. Others do not. Which prompts Jesus to say two things: “Your faith has made you well” and “Where are the nine?”