“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.”
C.S. Lewis
One of the things I really want to teach my kids is to be thankful. Sometimes, I feel like I can spend a whole day doing special things for them, and yet, they still find time to whine about the one thing I didn’t do or buy. I find myself thinking, “They never appreciate anything I do for them. They just want more.” It actually frustrates me so much that sometimes, I hesitate in doing extra things because I anticipate them being ungrateful. I consider myself to be a thankful and polite person, but recently God pointed out (as only God can) how completely ungrateful I can be at times.
First, I need to give you a little bit of a background for those that don’t already know. For years, my wife and I have struggled financially. It seemed like during those years I stressed over every bill, dreaded every trip to the grocery store, and panicked whenever a birthday or Christmas was coming up. Granted, we were able, at times, to do special things, but for the most part we were living paycheck to paycheck and it seemed like whenever we were starting to get comfortable disaster would strike. When I say disaster, you need to understand that because of our financial situation, a disaster didn’t have to be anything big. I mean a hundred dollar item needing to be replaced was a big deal for us and anything above that was certainly considered a disaster. I even remember a Christmas not too long ago where I had to tell my wife, I honestly didn’t think we would be able to buy gifts for our boys. Of course, through every disaster and every ordeal God was there. He always showed up and he always provided. Perhaps not as quickly as we would have liked, but he always pulled us through with little more than a bruise or a tiny little scratch to show for it.
Even in the midst, of all of this, I remember my wife and I having several discussions where we recognized that God was teaching us to trust and rely on Him. In fact, I specifically remember my wife saying she was tired of this lesson and wanted to start a new lesson. To say that we were stressed and weary from our struggles would be a massive understatement. While I do feel like we were slowly learning to trust God more and more; each new dilemma was still met with an initial panic moment before we remembered God was there and God would take care of it. I tell you all this because I want to emphasize how big of a deal this was to us. We were drowning in stress and we both prayed constantly for relief. We didn’t want to stress anymore. We didn’t want to wonder if we could buy groceries or pay our bills. Honestly, I just didn’t want to feel like I was failing as a husband, a father and adult. So, we prayed for relief, we prayed for better jobs, we prayed for less stress and financial security and this prayer continued for years.
Well, as God always does, he provided for us, but he did it in His time and not ours. My wife went back to teaching, adding that paycheck to the amount I was making at my job, we suddenly found ourselves with the security we had been longing for. We were able to get groceries and pay bills without worrying about it. We were able to realistically talk about big future purchases. I was able to come out one morning to a flat tire, shrug it off and continue with my day knowing I could deal with it, without stressing at all. Suddenly minor repairs and such were no longer a big deal. I could just take care of them. I didn’t need to stress or worry about them. I can say, that while I don’t think I was as thankful as I should have been considering the years of stress and prayer, I did stop and thank God several times for how he had provided for us, but God still had more He needed me to see.
Do you remember in Exodus when the Israelites are being led out of Egypt and they complain about how they didn’t have any food? Well, as you know, God, provides for them and sends manna down from heaven so they do not starve. But after a while what happens? The Israelites start to complain again, because they didn’t want to eat the same thing every day. They wanted meat. I remember reading this and thinking to myself, “how can they possibly be complaining?! God is literally making food fall from the sky for them to eat!” Well, as it turns out I am just as capable of complaining even in the midst of God’s blessings. Perhaps this is “my manna story.”
So last weekend, my wife and I were going to a birthday party at a baseball game with our boys and the battery light came on in the van. I didn’t consider it a big deal; I just told myself “I need to get that fixed along with the brakes before we go out of town next weekend.” However, the next day the car died completely, and it wouldn’t start back up; the stress started to build. “Why is all this happening right before our vacation? I have tickets to go see the Cardinals! I don’t want to miss the game. What if the mechanic can’t get the car fixed in time. It’s an electric issue and I’m going to have to take it to a special mechanic and he’s going to be super busy and it will be a week before it’s fixed. Goodbye Cardinals game, Goodbye first vacation in 4 years.” The stress mounted quickly and my mood flipped on a dime. I want to point something out. Nowhere in my worries was I stressed about the problem not getting fixed. I wasn’t worried about not having the money to fix it. I was just upset about the timing of it all. I was upset that I may miss something I was really looking forward to. In fact I even remember telling my wife “I’m not worried about the van getting fixed. I know it will get fixed. I’m upset because I bought these Cardinals tickets and now I may not be able to go.”
I wasn’t mad because I couldn’t fix the problem. I was mad because the problem was inconvenient. I was upset because I didn’t know exactly what the problem was or how long it would take to repair it. I wasn’t even taking the time to appreciate the fact that a yeara ago an issue like this could have crippled our family financially, and now I knew I could fix it without worrying about it. I stressed about it for about a day before finally giving it to God and trusting that He would take care of it. Any time it started to creep into my mind I would pray that God would take care of it and we would still be able to go on our trip. To make a long story short, the problem ended up being something that my brother-in-law and I were able to fix in one day with very little cost. The trip was saved and yet again God came through. I was grateful and I prayed thanking God for his provision, yet I still didn’t recognize what I had done.
It wasn’t until the next night that it finally clicked. I was just like the Israelites. I was complaining about an inconvenience in the face of God’s overwhelming provision. I didn’t take the time to thank God that I was able to handle this problem from a financial aspect. I didn’t thank God that I could still fix this and pay my bills and buy groceries. I didn’t thank God this wasn’t matter of can we fix it; it was simply a matter of when can we fix it. In a moment of stress, I had forgotten all about his blessings and instead focused solely on my inconvenience and just like that the stress mounted, panic set in and my joy was GONE!
I know life can be stressful. I know things happen and sometimes they can completely ruin our plans or sometimes they can cause huge problems financially. But we have to learn to trust God. However, as I just learned, it isn’t just about trusting God. We have to be thankful for what God has done and is doing in our lives. We must be thankful for His provisions, past, present and future. We have to be thankful for who He is. We have to be thankful for His love and grace. We need to learn to be thankful for Him in everything we do and every situation we find ourselves in. Yet, here is the shocker about our thankfulness. It isn’t for God’s benefit. He doesn’t need our thanks, nor does He require it. He is already in an eternal relationship of love within the Holy Trinity. He doesn’t need us at all. He chooses to love us and He chooses to take care of us. The thankfulness we show God is actually for our benefit. By being thankful to God and keeping our mind on how much He has done for us and resting on His faithfulness we prevent Satan from stealing our joy. I mean look at what happened to me. I was in a better situation than I had been in a long time, about to take my first vacation in 4 years and set to go see my favorite sports team and yet in an instant I took my focus off God and just like the lion prowling, Satan, leaped at the first sight of weakness. With one swipe my joy was gone, and it took me all day to refocus on God and get it back. God grants joy and Satan tries to take it. Staying focused on God and remaining thankful is our best weapon in preventing Satan from stealing that.
This is exactly why I put that quote from C.S. Lewis at the beginning of the page. Not that it is really all that surprising coming from him, but that quote is quite profound. When we become Christians, God allows us to see the world in a different way. We clearly start to see sin in a different way and we hopefully start to see the people around us in a different way too. What we seem to forget is that it should also allow us to see our problems in a different way as well. We need to see our stress, weaknesses, failures and even our problems through the lens that only Christianity can provide. Once we do that, we will start to see we really don’t need to be stressed. Our weaknesses are only there to show His strength. Our failures are only setbacks that bring us closer to God. Even what we see as the most complicated problems and biggest obstacles are nothing more than tiny insignificant pebbles when faced against the unlimited power of God. So, let me ask you this: How can we possibly see our lives through that lens and be anything less than eternally grateful for who He is and what He is doing in our lives?
What do you have to be thankful for? Have you thanked God for it today?
Do you have a Manna Story?
Is there anything you need to give to God and stop worrying about?
