"WHAT WE NEED THIS THANKSGIVING - RADICAL GRATITUDE" - John Stonestreet and Chuck Colson, Breakpoint.org, 11/26/20; https://www.breakpoint.org/what-we-need-this-thanksgiving/ [AS I SEE IT: I don't know about you, but 2020 (which still has around 5 weeks to go) has had some of the most difficult moments I can remember happening in just one year. There have been many times when I found myself literally crying out to God to "hit the pause button" on unplesant surprise after surprise that struck me. I confess it was hard to be thankful -let alone joyful - even as I determined to trust God to have things under control. As this article pooints out, it all comes down to the question "Do I only trust God - and am thankful- when things are going well, or am I able to trust God when the unexplainably unpleasant comes at you one after another like ocean tides rushing in. Gratitude in those times is what demonstrates true faith and those are the times when our thankfulness really honors God. May thanksgiving truly become not just a holiday but a lifestyle and a legacy we leave to draw others to our Heavenly Father! - Stan]
G.K. Chesterton once said that gratitude was “nearly the greatest of all human duties, (and) nearly the most difficult.” It is the greatest of human duties, because as Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “what do we have that we did not receive?” It is especially difficult in a year like this, because we see in so many ways that things could be better.
Chuck Colson made this point in a BreakPoint commentary from 2011. When life is great, Chuck said, it’s easy to be grateful. When life is difficult, however, expressing gratitude can be a strange, yet profound, witness to the world:A few years ago, university psychologists conducted a research project on gratitude and thanksgiving. They divided participants into three groups. People in the first group practiced daily exercises like writing in a gratitude journal. They reported higher levels of alertness, determination, optimism, energy, and less depression and stress than the control group. Unsurprisingly, they were also a lot happier than the participants who were told to keep an account of all the bad things that happened each day. One of the psychologists concluded that though a practice of gratitude is a key to most religions, its benefits extend to the general population, regardless of faith or no faith. He suggested that anyone can increase his sense of well-being just from counting his blessings.
As my colleague Ellen Vaughn wrote in her book, Radical Gratitude, no one is going to disagree that gratitude is a virtue. But, Ellen says, counting our blessings and conjuring an attitude of to-whom-it-may-concern gratitude, Pollyanna-style is not enough.What do we do when cancer strikes — I have two children who have battled it — or when loved ones die, when we find ourselves in the midst of brokenness and real suffering? That, she says, is where gratitude gets radical.
While they often mingle together in the life of a follower of Christ, there are actually two types of thankfulness. One is secondary, the other primary. The secondary sort is thankfulness for blessings received. Life, health, home, family, freedom, a tall, cold lemonade on a summer day — it’s a mindset of active appreciation for all good gifts. The great preacher and American theologian Jonathan Edwards called thanks for such blessings “natural gratitude.” It’s a good thing, but this gratitude doesn’t come naturally — if at all — when things go badly. It can’t buoy us in difficult times. Nor, by itself, does it truly please God. And, to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when things are going well.
Edwards calls the deeper, primary form of thankfulness “gracious gratitude.” It gives thanks not for goods received, but for who God is: for His character — His goodness, love, power, excellencies — regardless of favors received. And it’s real evidence of the Holy Spirit working in a person’s life.This gracious gratitude for who God is also goes to the heart of who we are in Christ. It is relational, rather than conditional. Though our world may shatter, we are secure in Him. The fount of our joy, the love of the God who made us and saved us, cannot be quenched by any power that exists (Romans 8:28-39). People who are filled with such radical gratitude are unstoppable, irrepressible, overflowing with what C. S. Lewis called “the good infection” — the supernatural, refreshing love of God that draws others to Him.
And that, more than any words we might utter, is a powerful witness to our neighbors that God’s power is real, and His presence very relevant, even in a world full of brokenness as well as blessings. I’m John Stonestreet, from all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Thanksgiving.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCE: "G. K. Chesterton on wonder and gratitude…." - G.K. Chesterton | Humanitas | November 21, 2012; https://humanitas.org/?p=1804
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PRAYER MATTERS:
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against
the disorder of the world. - Karl Barth"Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and trusting/resting in His love and grace to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time and for His greatest glory. Intercession is one of the great privileges AND responsibilities for EVERY believer."- Stan----------------------------------------------------------------------World-Wide Praises:
PRAISE GOD for the continuing successes against ISIS !PRAISE GOD for the contining successes of the Trump Admin. to establish peace in the ME!
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Attack kills mother and child in BANGLADESH. In the early hours of the morning, while Shilpi, 30, and Supria, her 5-year-old daughter, were sleeping in their bedroom, someone threw a bomb through an open window. The bomb exploded, and fire quickly engulfed everything in the room. Although Shilpi and Supria managed to escape, their injuries were too great and both died a short time later. Shilpi’s husband, Ridoy, was at work when the attack occurred. Our field partner, Stephen Liton Halder, visited Ridoy after the attack and asks for prayers: “[Ridoy is] feeling completely hopeless, frustrated, depressed. He is in mourning, refusing to speak to anyone.” Stephen believes this was an act of Christian persecution—the family are the only known Christians in an area filled with religious extremists.
November 26 - Pray the police will find the perpetrator of this violence and bring them to justice.
*Representative name or photo used to protect identity
the disorder of the world. - Karl Barth
PRAISE GOD for the continuing successes against
Attack kills mother and child in BANGLADESH. In the early hours of the morning, while Shilpi, 30, and Supria, her 5-year-old daughter, were sleeping in their bedroom, someone threw a bomb through an open window. The bomb exploded, and fire quickly engulfed everything in the room. Although Shilpi and Supria managed to escape, their injuries were too great and both died a short time later. Shilpi’s husband, Ridoy, was at work when the attack occurred. Our field partner, Stephen Liton Halder, visited Ridoy after the attack and asks for prayers: “[Ridoy is] feeling completely hopeless, frustrated, depressed. He is in mourning, refusing to speak to anyone.” Stephen believes this was an act of Christian persecution—the family are the only known Christians in an area filled with religious extremists.
November 26 - Pray the police will find the perpetrator of this violence and bring them to justice.
*Representative name or photo used to protect identity
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