Exuberant Living

I was reading 1 Timothy 6 this morning and was struck by one of Paul’s seminal statements, “godliness with contentment is great gain” (v. 6). What a perfect verse to prepare my heart to preach on thanksgiving this weekend (the services will be streamed on CHCC.org at 9 am and 11 am mountain time, if you care to listen in). Instead of pursuing riches, the desire of which “plunges men into ruin and destruction” (v. 9), Paul tells us to “flee from this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (v. 11).

Earnestly pursuing the glorious virtues became the focus of my third book The Glorious Pursuit. To prepare our hearts for Thanksgiving, I thought I’d just run the entire chapter.

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Exuberant Living

Thankfulness

Grace always attendeth him that is truly thankful.

Thomas à Kempis

When pro football hall of famer and former United States Congressman Steve Largent watched his wife give birth to his fourth child, he was elated to see another son come into their family. Then the doctor said, “Uh oh, we’ve got a problem,” and Steve froze. His son was born with the exposed spinal cord condition spina bifida.

As Steve wept, his wife, Terry, comforted him by saying, “God planned Kramer. Having him in our lives will be one of the greatest things that ever happened to us.”

Today, Steve and Terry have found cause to be thankful in the face of a situation that would leave some parents angry and bitter. “For myself and for my wife, we wouldn’t change a thing,” Steve says. “For our son, we wish it would be different, that he didn’t have to live with this. But having a child with a disability has added more to our lives than anything else. It’s given us more compassion and sympathy for other couples facing difficult challenges.”[i]

What is it that helps one person become thankful while another becomes bitter? William Law, the eighteenth-century Anglican, asks an intriguing question: “Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world?” His answer is fascinating:

It is not he who prays most or fasts most. It is not he who gives the most money . . . but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, and who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.[ii]

Thankful Christians have cultivated a view of God’s goodness in which they believe that He can work through all things. In humility, they’re willing to accept that their understanding doesn’t define God’s goodness, so even when things look bad, they find something to be thankful for.

This is right in line with Scripture. First Chronicles 16:34 urges us to “Give thanks to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:20 emphasizes this, saying we should “always giv[e] thanks to God the Father.” First Thessalonians 5:18 is even more direct: “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Thankfulness is one of the most beautiful, and spiritually strengthening, attitudes of Christ. It is true that God deserves our thankfulness, but duty and obligation are hardly good motivators. Thankfulness, as an attitude, is like a fuel that powers the Christian life and keeps us moving on the pathway of spiritual growth, even when the climb is steep and the trail rough. Unless we learn how to cultivate a thankful heart, we become stuck in bitterness.