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Abounding in Thanks COLOSSIANS 2:6-7
A prayer by Dennis Jones called “Now What?” “O God, the sign said ‘Smile If you love Jesus.’ So I smiled all day long, and people thought I was a staff worker for Jimmy Carter. The sign said ‘Honk if you love Jesus.’ So I honked and the policeman arrested me for disturbing the peace in a hospital quiet zone. The sign said ‘Wave if you love Jesus,’ so I waved with both hands, but I lost control of the car and crashed into the back of a Baptist bus. O God, if I cannot smile or honk or wave, how will Jesus know I love him? One of the best ways to let Jesus know we love him is prescribed in the Bible: Give thanks, express gratitude, abound in thanksgiving. As Paul told us in the scripture lesson this morning, "rooted and built up in Christ.. abounding in thanksgiving.” Gratitude is the overflow of a glad heart. Be plentiful, have plenty of abundance, be rich, overflow. My cup runneth over. Imagine what life would be like, imagine what relationships would be like if we abounded, if we overflowed in thanks. Abounding in thanks means to rejoice in what you have rather than complaining about what you don't have. Abounding in thanks means to be appreciative of what you have, rather than feeling sorry about what you don't have. I’ve said this before, and I think we need to hear it again, because the concept escapes us. Our forefathers and our foremothers, the heroes and heroines of our faith in the Bible, in the early days of our of our United Methodist Church, and in the early days of this nation, in the frontier days, they celebrated and rejoiced in thanksgiving. We are grateful and we express gratitude as did the pilgrims on that first Thanksgiving. They expected life to be hard. They assumed life would be hard, that life would be cruel, that death would be on every hand. They expected at least one of their children to die. That was a fact of life. They expected famines, they expected droughts. They expected life to be hard. And when it wasn’t, when it was good, when they enjoyed health, when they enjoyed long life, they considered it a blessing from God, a favor bestowed by God and their heart welled up in praise, thanksgiving and gratitude. You and I, on the other hand, expect life to be good. We think it's our due that we should be happy. We think it's our right that we should have good health. We think it's our right that death should not be part of our family picture. We expect life to be good. We think it's our due and when it isn’t, we complain and cry. We cry out, “Why God? Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? Why did God do this to me?” rather than praising him for the good. Our stance towards life is one of expecting things to be good and when they're not good, we complain. We rarely find time and the opportunity to abound in thanksgiving with an overflow of a glad heart. We say little, we react little, we respond little until things are bad. Like the baby who at the age of two had not yet spoken a word. The parents got a little worried, but all the friends and neighbors said, “Well, some children just mature a little later.” The baby reached age three and still hadn't said a word. By then the parents were very worried. They took him to doctors, had his hearing tested, had his IQ tested and all kinds of tests to find out why this baby hadn't spoken. Until one day, they had spinach again. The baby took the bowl, tipped it over, threw it in the floor and said, I refuse to eat this despicable food.” They exclaimed, “You talk! How come you've never said anything before.” He said, “Up to now everything's been fine.” How quick we are to complain. How difficult it is to be thankful, to abound. Giving thanks means to appreciate what you have, instead of complaining about what you don't have. Abounding in thanks means to appreciate what other people do for you, rather than complain about what they don't do. Abounding in thanks means to appreciate others as to how they perform, rather than criticizing them for how they don't perform, or how they should perform. Wouldn’t life be different! Wouldn't it be a miracle if out of our mouths came “Thank you,” instead of griping, complaining, picking, cutting, slashing, demeaning people because of their mistakes and their errors. Someone told me this week that she thought bazaars brought out the worst in people. She said you wouldn't believe all the petty bickering that went on over what we were going to price the items. Well, I suppose there are two things we could do. We could either call off bazaars or we could learn how to abound in thanks and be appreciative of what others do, rather than criticizing them for what they don't do. Abounding in thanksgiving means to rejoice in the day at hand, to celebrate the day at hand and not worry about the future. One of the things that kept recurring in the congregational coffees as we gathered together all the input from the congregation. Every now and then came this kind of a sentiment: Well, things seem to be going quite smoothly in our church right now, but I'm sure it won't last. The road is smooth now, but I'm sure around the corner there are potholes and bumps. Such people must have a difficult time being happy. We complain when things are bad. And when things are good, we say they won't last. Abounding in thanksgiving means to rejoice in what is in the day at hand and let tomorrow take care of itself. I have a challenge for us, including me. I have a challenge for the rest of today and possibly all week if you can stand it. For the rest of today, every time you're tempted to come out with something negative, with some kind of complaint or gripe or some kind of criticism, push it back down and say “Thank you” and appreciate something in the person or the situation. Of course, I realize there is one danger in this challenge. Your spouse will probably have a heart attack or your children or your parents. But let's take the risk. Now I don't mean disagreeing. It’s perfectly proper and correct that we disagree and even fight over what we believe to be important. That is proper to do in the Why is it so hard for us to abound in Thanksgiving? Why are such persons rare, persons who overflow with a glad heart? Why is it so difficult to be thankful? Don't we know how to be thankful? Or don't we have anything to be thankful for? And maybe that's closer to it. Negative complaining and griping is probably an indication that we don't have anything in US dweller. As someone said, “Ingratitude is the halitosis of the soul.” There are a lot of souls that have bad breath, a lot of souls with BO and outcomes, negative cutting remarks—souls that are shriveled, souls that are dying for water, souls or thirsty souls that are starved. Our forefathers and foremothers believed in original sin. They believed that God's creation was good, but it has been corrupted, despoiled, affected by sin. They believed that evil was on every hand, that evil was a very present, current and strong reality. When things were good, they rejoiced and called it a blessing from God and expressed thanks. They further believed they were sinners, they had been corrupted and spoiled by sin. They believed that they personally were not in right relationship with God. They believed that they were out of step, out of harmony with the Spirit of God, that the Spirit of God was not flowing in and through them as it could be. And they believed they were not living as they were meant to live. They were not the kind of people who God had made them to be. They believed they were sinners. And they most urgently and most dramatically sought God's forgiveness, sought to be put back in right relationship with him, sought to be reconciled with him. John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, said that we all are sinners seeking to be saved from the wrath of God, seeking to be saved, pursuing the Spirit of God. And when they experienced redemption, and when they experienced the taste of God's Spirit, when they experienced forgiveness and acceptance by God, it was a celebrated momentous, monumental event. It was dramatic. They rejoiced and their heart overflowed. Enjoy in gratitude. You and I in the church today don't like that word sin. We don't like it. It makes us uncomfortable. We refuse to admit that there's something wrong with us. We refuse to admit that our life has been corrupted. We refuse to admit the desolation of our souls. We don't want to face the fact that our souls can shrivel and get smaller and smaller. We don't want to face the fact of our loneliness. We don't want to face the fact that we're not in step with God, that we’re not in right relationship with him, and that we are starved for his spirit. So we cover it all up with self righteousness. Our poor self images come out in cutting other people down in order to build ourselves up. We don't want to admit we are in need of God’s grace, of God's love, and forgiveness. But the glorious good news is that when we do admit our situation, when we do admit our state, and when we open ourselves and ask God's forgiveness, when we open ourselves and say, “Lord, take me. O Lord, fill me with your spirit. O Lord, put me into relationship with you”, God will answer. His Spirit will come with joy, love, peace and gratitude. A lack of gratitude is a sign that we're not in step with God. Real rejoicing, real thanksgiving, deep overwhelming joy comes when we admit who and what we are and ask him to restore us, Then we abound in thanksgiving, grateful for what we have and not complaining about what we don't have, to be appreciative of what others do and not criticize them for what they don't do, to rejoice in the day at hand and not worry about tomorrow, to abound in thanksgiving. As God fills us with Spirit, Jesus will know we love him by the extent and depth of our gratitude. © 1976 Douglas I. Norris |