Practice Thanksgiving 365 Days A Year

Father Jim Fosdick

St. Mary of the Snows Anglican Church

Thanksgiving Day 2007

Lord of light - shine upon us. God of love fill our hearts with your wisdom. Holy Spirit, bring yourself closer to us in my words and how we hear them, in our thoughts and how we think them. Use this time - and use us to accomplish your good will. Amen.

All of our readings today emphasize praising God or rejoicing for what God has done and will do for us. So I want to spend our time together this morning dealing with this question of thanksgiving. Paul addresses being thankful in several of his letters so that’s what I want to draw from. Being thankful is at the heart of part of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with THANKSGIVING, present your requests to God.” Thanksgiving is much more than a holiday celebration; it is supposed to be the condition of our hearts!

When I lived in the Chicago area I had a spiritual director that I saw about once a month. On one of my visits my spiritual director asked me if I knew what the word Eucharist meant. Without thinking I said Communion. He said yes we use the words interchangeably but what he was looking for was the translation. Eucharist means great thanksgiving. He pointed out to me that in our sessions together I made it clear to him that I was living my life in great thanksgiving for what Jesus has done for me. What has he done? He saved my life and gave me eternal life. As Anglicans we believe in a balance between word and sacrament, so thanksgiving is very much what we are about.  Thanksgiving is more than a celebration of food; it is a celebration of faith!

Satan does not want our heart to be free to thank God for His blessings; he wants us to have a heart attack! Satan doesn’t want you to have a celebration of faith but clogged arteries of fear and worry. Many of our lives are filled with WORRY. The English word for “WORRY” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word which means “to strangle.” This is an apt description of the emotional pain we feel when we worry. What is strangled is our peace of mind. There is a way however to recapture peace of mind (and heart and soul) even in the midst of trials and tribulations, it involves a process of correct thinking which will lead to correct living.

We need to learn to think differently if we are to act differently! We can do this by learning to take every thought into captivity for Christ. We can think differently as we develop an awareness of God’s presence in our lives and depend fully upon God and His strength to empower us to defend our hearts from worry fear and anything else Satan may want to use to turn our thoughts sour.

As believers thanksgiving should not be reserved for one day a year; for that matter we also shouldn’t withhold our thanksgiving for “Sundays only.” We should live a lifestyle of thanksgiving.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
This is not Paul’s suggestion for just a day! He wants us to live a joy filled life; a life so full of the joy of the Lord that it spreads out and touches those around us. Joy coming out of our pores makes our faith attractive to others. Often I think Paul’s comments here are misunderstood in the same way people have misunderstand James; how are we supposed to as James puts it “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds?” Is it possible for anyone to count it “pure joy in trials” or “rejoice always?” Surely this is an impossible request in light of all the bad things that happen to us in life!

I had first hand evidence of this attitude of rejoicing from the Archdeacon of Chicago who was a strong believer. Dick Pemble was dieing of cancer and yet each day he sent out an e-mail to clergy in the diocese of Chicago that always began the same way. This is the day that the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it. Let me be clear on this, we don’t get joy from the trials or the suffering but from the fruit that comes from them as we submit to the work God is doing in our lives. Likewise, it is NOT “rejoice IN EVERYTHING,” but “REJOICE IN THE LORD … always!”
We don’t rejoice IN the positive things or even rejoice IN SPITE of the negative things; it is that we “REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS.” Since the Lord is the constant in a changing universe our rejoicing can also be constant because He never changes.
I think we lose our focus way too often and think about the wrong things! As Christians we should not give in to worry and fear because the Lord is with us. If that’s not a good enough reason for you then the fact remains that most of the things we worry about  rarely come to pass!

Sunday I tried to get you to think of some reasons for fearing the future and gave some reasons why you shouldn’t.  Douglas Rumford in his book Scared to Life cites a study that explains why we shouldn’t allow fear to rule our lives:
-- 60% of our fears are totally unfounded;
-- 20% are already behind us;
-- 10% are so petty they don’t make any difference;
-- 4-5% of the remaining 10% are real, but we can’t do anything about them. That means only 5% are real fears that we can do something about.
It’s time we stop wasting so much energy on worry and begin to rejoice in the Lord!

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
Paul says that we are to “REJOICE ALWAYS.” Paul is so adamant that he repeats the phrase twice to insure that we don’t miss the importance of what he is telling us. We are to be joyful people! This is much more than just an encouragement; it is an emphasis for life. As a believer if you go through a day without rejoicing then you haven’t really lived. Jesus said the thief comes to rob steal kill and destroy, but He has come to give you life—and give it abundantly. How many days are you going to let Satan rob you of really living? REJOICE!

Satan wants you to focus on your circumstances and miss out on really living. Paul says focus on the Lord and rejoice; then you are really living! Susan would tell you that one of my addictions is sports, particularly football. Coach Jimmy Johnson who’s a commentator now was asked what he told his players before leading the Dallas Cowboys onto the field for the 1993 Super Bowl. He said, "I told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the floor, everybody there would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be on walking the length of that board. But if I put that same board 10 stories high between two buildings, only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling." Johnson told his players not to focus on the crowd, the media, or the possibility of falling, but to focus on each play of the game as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52-7.     Winning the game still required making blocks and executing plays; there was still opposition to overcome—although the final score may not seem to indicate much difficulty. But through it all the Cowboys remained focused.

We can’t let ourselves be trapped by fear and worry. Develop a lifestyle of thanksgiving! REJOICE IN THE LORD.
You might ask, “How are we to rejoice and live a lifestyle of thanksgiving?” Paul gives some examples. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. The first key is to guard your emotions. The first place our emotions are seen by the world is in our actions. Our emotions are on display for the world to see through the things we say and do. “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” Now if Paul stopped there, then we could all say there is no use; we could just give up and go home, but he doesn’t. Notice what he says next, “The Lord is near.” YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS ALONE! God is there to help if you call on him.

In Galatians Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
God is with you! He will empower you to live with joy even through the most difficult circumstances. Notice that it says the fruit of the spirit is. That means all of these. As believers we are given love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Fruit is not like gifts. To some are given various gifts…tongues for example. But all believers receive all the fruit.

If we as Christians praised God more, the world would doubt Him less. We need to be consciously aware of how we think. Our thoughts control our feelings and our actions. Paul said, “Do not be anxious about anything.” It’s obvious Paul didn’t live in the 21st century; we’ve got lots more to worry about right? Oh wait, Paul wrote this from a Roman prison cell, a real hell hole where many people died because they lost all hope. While Paul was eventually allowed to live in a home, he never regained his freedom; he was constantly under Roman guard – right up until the day he was taken out and executed. I guess Paul might have had some things to worry about after all; given what he was suffering my worries look mighty small.

How are we to guard our emotions and keep free from worry? Paul says, “In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Give your worries to God. Notice our prayer is to include thanksgiving! This is not simply thanking God for what he has done, but it is to give thanks for what God is going to do. By faith see how God is going to work through your circumstances to accomplish His purposes; see God’s preferred future and give Him thanks. When I pray with people for healing I always make a point of thanking Jesus for answering our prayers. He always hears and he always answers. This doesn’t mean he always does what we ask, but he always does what’s best for us and his Kingdom.

Paul shows us a second key to living with a lifestyle of thanksgiving; we’re to renew our minds. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. We have a choice about what we are going to let consume our thoughts. We decide what we read and watch which becomes what our minds are filled with. Paul shows us the right things to think about. Are the things in your mind true? Are your thoughts noble and right? Is what you are thinking pure and lovely? Do your thoughts lead to praise? If these are not the kind of things you are thinking then you are thinking the wrong things! RENEW YOUR MIND.

Out of the history of Napoleonic France, author Leonard Griffith presents a moving story of a political prisoner by the name of Charnet. Charnet was thrown into prison simply because he had accidentally, by a remark, offended the emperor Napoleon. Cast into a dungeon cell, presumably left to die, as the days and weeks and months passed by, Charnet became embittered at his fate. Slowly but surely he began to lose his faith in God. And one day, in a moment of rebellious anger, he scratched on the wall of his cell, "All things come by chance," which reflected the injustice that had come his way by chance. He sat in the darkness of that cell growing more bitter by the day.

There was one spot in the cell where a single ray of sunlight came every day and remained for a little while. And one morning, to his absolute amazement, he noticed that in the hard, earthen floor of that cell a tiny, green blade was breaking through. It was something living, struggling up toward that shaft of sunlight. It was his only living companion, and his heart went out in joy toward it. He nurtured it with his tiny ration of water, cultivated it, and encouraged its growth. That green blade became his friend. It became his teacher in a sense, and finally it burst through until one day there bloomed from the little plant a beautiful, purple and white flower. Once again Charnet found himself thinking thoughts about God. He scratched off the thing he had scribbled on the wall of his dungeon and in its place wrote, "He who made all things is God."

Somehow through the guards and their wives and the gossip of the community, this little story reached the ears of Josephine, Napoleon’s wife. She was so moved by it and so convinced that a man who loved a flower that way could not possibly be a dangerous criminal that she persuaded Napoleon to release him. So Charnet was set free. You can be sure that he dug out his precious little prison flower and took it with him and cultivated that plant in the years to come. He also pondered in his heart a verse that he put on the little flower pot holding the plant. What would that verse be? "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

What we feed grows like that flower. If we feed our minds with twisted novels, or porn, or bad movies, that will grow in us. If we feed our minds with God’s word, with classic literature and quality films this too will grow in us.

God is in control. As I said Sunday, the Bible tells us that He will cause all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. God has not overlooked you; trust Him. You are never out of His sight or His mind. Renew your mind and think on the right things! In so doing you will find that you can rejoice for God is at work in and through the circumstances of your life.

Rejoice in the Lord! Guard your emotions as you respond to life with gentleness. Rejoice in the Lord as you refuse to give a place in your heart for fear and worry; instead pray about everything. Rejoice in the Lord as you renew your mind; think the right thoughts. When you learn to rejoice in the Lord, your thanksgiving will inevitably bring you the peace of God.

 I want to conclude with another passage from Phillipians…And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus . . . Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Peace doesn’t come from wishing, it comes from doing. Disciple comes from the same word as discipline. As followers of Christ we need to discipline ourselves not just by listening to what Christ calls on us to do but by doing it. When we pray we need to do so with thanksgiving. Living lives of thanksgiving helps us to be more aware of our blessings. The more aware you are of your blessings the more you feel blessed. Feeling blessed is a state of peace that only God can give. This Thanksgiving be truly thankful and God will bless you. Amen.