What If Thanks-giving Isn’t Working For Me?
Dear High Street Family,
What is thanksgiving?
I don’t just mean the holiday—but the actual word. That verb. The action of giving thanks. During the holiday of Thanksgiving, we commemorate that idea of giving thanks but can lose the vitality of what it is we’re actually doing. What’s going on here?
Thanks + Giving = What?
What does it really mean to give thanks?
What are we giving?
And to Whom are we giving this?
Of course, most of us have heard the treasured tales of the first Thanksgiving, and later the amazing declaration of Abraham Lincoln in the wake of Gettysburg and in the midst of Civil War, to turn to God, to give Him thanks in the middle of… everything.
But Abe and the first settlers were pulling from a deeper theme in Scripture. In the struggle for survival and the devastation of war, they drew back to God’s command to remember.
From Genesis through Revelation, God tells his people to look at His ways, His mighty acts, His victories among them—and mark that moment as a God-moment. To remember that moment as a moment when God moved.
Would you say you’ve experienced a God-moment?
Israel practiced this as a nation. They would take account as a people. Point to a moment that God came through. And say, that right there, that was a moment God showed up. For our people. For us. For me.
They would mark this with a Stone of Remembrance, an Ebenezer—see 1 Samuel 7:12 (check out an article on Ebenezers here).
These Ebenezer stones were stacked and marked as a physical spot where Israel worshipped God for His breakthrough. These testified to them in future moments, especially when it was hard to see, the heart and power of the Living God toward them. They were telling their future by looking backward.
Thanksgiving is looking back at these moments of breakthrough where God showed up, and remembering—despite everything we’ve faced—that is Who God really is. And translating God’s heart and power from that time into this moment.
When circumstances, struggles, or sins pile up against us—where do you reorient? Who is God when things are hard?
Thanksgiving—remembrance—is the act of turning back to those God moments, to our best memories with God in order to look forward.
The biblical call to thanksgiving points to those moments God showed up, where we can say without a doubt, “That was God.”
And, in a breath saying, “And that is who God is. Who He is truly. Who He is to me now, too, even if I haven’t seen it yet.”
With everything that changes and shifts in this life, God doesn’t change. He has revealed Himself, in Scripture, yes, and in my life. And He will continue to be the same God.
And in thanksgiving…as I remember Him…suddenly, I connect again to that truth of Who God is. My God-moment “back-then” beckons a now.
The physicality of those Ebenezer stones were intended to endure as a remembrance for Israel and to their next generations—a generational prayer for God to “Do it again!”
What are the areas where you’ve seen God’s help? Where have you seen God’s work in your story?
What did you notice about God in that season? What was His heart toward you?
Did you experience His love? His presence? His healing? His forgiveness? His peace? What was it for you?
If God doesn’t change, what would it be like to come to Him, that God, your God, afresh today?
So beautiful, and yet, sometimes even these God-moments seem so few and far between. What if in trying to be thankful, it feels like we’re only contrasting what isn’t working? Sometimes our focus on the good-things can seem to only shed light on how much darkness there is.
Sometimes remembering to be thankful only makes us feel worse.
Well, later in the New Testament, Jesus calls us to remembrance too. It’s on that last night with His disciples, during the last supper, He instituted an act of remembrance called Communion. The broken bread was a picture of His broken body. The dark wine was a picture of His spilt blood on the Cross. Such violent and heavy images, but needed, especially for those living in darkness.
For those who are really in it, walking through dark seasons, it is this remembrance of the Cross, that can be so healing.
Jesus didn’t just stand at a distance and tell us to be thankful. That He actually entered our darkness. He came into our reticence to be thankful. He carried the cross that we deserved. He came into human brokenness, our brokenness, and didn’t shy away.
In this, Jesus shows us God’s heart, God’s power. And in our areas of darkness and death--as we give them to Him—He is able to and willing to bring life.
All those areas that we aren’t thankful for. That we’d rather not have in our lives. That is what Jesus came to deal with.
That is where the Cross can become the greatest Stone of Help. The hardest things, the things we would never stack as Ebenezers, can actually become an altar where the sacrifice affects our area of deepest need. We can rest all the areas of death and sin we’re facing on that ultimate death of Jesus.
For in Jesus, death is swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54). Wow.
It's not just that we are thankful for the little things, instead, in Jesus, everything coming against us is literally the thing He already paid-the-price to resolve. We're just needing to draw near to Him in that thing.
What if Jesus died not just for you to be thankful, but to bring love and power into every area you’re just not thankful for. Could it be that He’s that good? (Rom. 5:17-21, Rom 8:18-28)
And for us whom the giving of thanks is deafened by the volume of death around us, consider, just minutes before Jesus instituted Communion—before His declaration of death transforming into life…what did He do?
He got down, wrapped Himself in a towel, and washed His disciple's feet.
He came as a servant.
And maybe instead of mustering up thankfulness today, you just need to come again to Jesus, the Servant, and receive.
Allow Him to wash your feet.
Talk with Him about what you’re going through.
Let Him look you in the eyes.
And see what He’s about.
See His heart again.
Tell Him why it’s hard to be thankful.
And let Him know where you're at.
Be with Him there.
Because, I’d suggest, that’s the type of Thanksgiving that Jesus really wants this holiday.
What about you?
Thankful for you,
Pastor Dave
Video Reflection – take a few moments to be with Jesus this Thanksgiving season. Talk with Him. Remember together. Let this calming worship song lead you into His presence.
