Everything-Thanks

 What does it mean to give thanks?

What does it mean anytime? Especially this time? 

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm struggling to enter the season of giving thanks. It's like the year has presented so many scenarios that have felt like anything but thank-worthy that I wrestle to peer past them all in order to see blessing. To grasp onto gratitude. To see God. 

Personally and collectively, the months since the last Thanksgiving have been difficult for us all. And it's felt like a challenge to keep on praying, to keep on hoping when so much appears to have gone wrong. But perhaps we're closer to the actual meaning of Thanksgiving in these times than we'd like to admit... 

I don't think it's an accident that this Thanksgiving falls on the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims landing in what they called "the new world." They set foot on our eastern shores with every high hope of a fresh start, much as we did at the beginning of this year. Wearied from years of religious persecution, they began a new life here with the intent of finding peace. What they got upon their arrival was anything but peaceful. Even though free from the incessant religious persecution they had endured, they were unprepared for the harsh eastern winter. Arriving in November with hardly any time to establish proper shelter and store up any food, they found themselves in a struggle for survival. 

And perhaps...seeing our empty grocery shelves earlier this year and shut up in our homes for weeks at length to avoid a global virus...perhaps we identify a bit more with their plight?  

Documented by William Bradford, a member of their original group, he notes that the first winter brought every imaginable hardship their way: nearly half their company died in 2-3 months time due to disease and for lack of adequate shelter - sometimes 2 or 3 died in a single day. Of the over 100 persons who came on the Mayflower, only about 50 remained and, in Bradford's words, "of these in the time of most distress, there was but 6 or 7 healthy persons who, to their great commendations be it spoken, spared no pains, day or night, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed [prepared] them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them; in a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without grudging in the least, showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren. A rare example and worthy to be remembered..." 

Between the hardships of their suffering, the uncertainty of how the Indians would treat them, and the lack of supplies to see them through, these people had their resolve tested in every way possible. Bradford, on reflecting back to this perilous time in their lives, had reason to observe, "May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: our fathers were Englishman which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity." 

With good reason, the following year when God had blessed them with a good harvest, sent compassionate Indians their way who helped them plant crops and also taught them how to interact with the nearby tribes, they gathered themselves together along with their new Indian friends and blessed God for His undeserved care. For three days, they feasted and celebrated with grateful hearts. Thus, we now keep the tradition of setting aside a special time of thanks in their honor and in the spirit of gratitude to God they exhibited so long ago. 

And here we are, four centuries later, in a world health crisis struggling for our own survival and striving to find our own praise in the midst of present difficulties. Maybe it's no accident that God has this 400th anniversary of that first arrival fall in a time when belief is challenging, when peaceful religious assembly is once again under attack, when faith is failing and hearts and growing tired and it's hard to keep being faithful. When thankfulness isn't the first thing we feel right now. When complaining and murmuring are the easier thing. 

I'm sure those Pilgrims had their lament moments just like us. Those times when, in their crying out to the Lord, they asked Him "how long?" and "why?" As death and disease and despair knocked on all their doors, I know they had their human moments when hope faded and their strength grew weak. But they knew where to turn. They knew who would and could sustain them. 

And we too can know that same hope. Because their God is our God. 

And the truth that held steadfast for them holds the same for us also: "in everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you" (1 Thess. 5:18); "giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20). Thanks-giving isn't just for all the things that are convenient, comfortable, and abundant. The "all things" really does include All. Things. 

Everything. 

Thanks is designed for everything. 

What it means to give thanks is to bless God under all circumstances. And this was the Pilgrims' secret. Their praise wasn't just for the seasons of plenty but also for the seasons of want. It had sustained them through years of secret worship in the old country, striving to be faithful to God in the face of tremendous fear. It now sustained them in the new world as they sought to establish a colony where life could be governed by His ultimate lordship. Even losing half their group to death in the first winter couldn't quench their faith. Rather, it gave all the more reason to assemble the next harvest with deep gratitude to God and lift their thanks all the more. 

This year, perhaps we don't assemble with our families like usual...perhaps we celebrate in a more solitary way...perhaps we remember amid limitations on our corporate worship just as they dealt with...perhaps we struggle to count our blessings compared to other years...but count our blessings we must as did they. Gathering the harvest of our plenty in the face of hardship, we must choose to trust in the Almighty's love and care even when life feels the most desperate. 

The greatest act of radical faith is to choose the thankful way when there seems to be no reason to. 

To display that your soul dares to still trust God even when what He gives appears ugly. 

To know that goodness is behind everything and, therefore, you must bless God in the midst everything. 

Must thank Him for even the broken part, even the hurting heart. Must choose to know that the empty spaces prove most were Grace is. 

On the other side of all this world-tragic, when we can look back and see how we were brought through, I hope the same can be said of us that was said of those first settlers so long ago: "Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth..."