You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Matthew 5:43-44
We just celebrated Thanksgiving, here in the U.S. I love Thanksgiving. Who doesn’t love getting together with family and loved ones and eating a bunch of food? But, there is so much more to the holiday than that! It is so good for us to have a day when we pause to spend time with friends and family and reflect upon our many blessings. And, it is important that we remember the history behind Thanksgiving.
In our modern culture, Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims, and the whole situation of their arrival to America gets a really bad rap. In focusing on all of the negative surrounding this event, we do a huge disservice, both to the brave people of the 1600s and to ourselves. The lessons we miss. . . .
The Mayflower sailed to America from England in 1620. The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock and set about trying to survive a harsh New England winter, the likes of which they had probably never encountered before. Not everyone who came over on the Mayflower was a Pilgrim coming here to escape religious persecution, but many of them were. Would you be brave enough to leave all you had ever known to come to a land about which little was known in order to worship as you saw fit?
Arriving in early winter, the Pilgrims were unable to disembark from the ship and had to stay onboard throughout the cold winter and many of them perished. Unprepared for the long hard winter ahead of them, nearly half of all the Pilgrims died from illness and hunger that first winter. When spring finally came, a Native American by the name of Tisquantum, or Squanto, as he is better known, befriended the Pilgrims and taught them basic farming technics which made it possible for the Pilgrims to survive.
Squanto had been captured, most likely as a young man, by the captain of a slaving ship where he was taken to Spain and sold into slavery. Somehow he was able to escape to England, where he learned English. Eventually Squanto joined the Newfoundland Company through which he was able to return home to America only to find that his whole village had been wiped out by disease during the time he had been gone. All of his family—gone. His way of life—gone. Forever. Sometime between his arrival back to America and the Pilgrim’s first spring, he was able to join the Wampanoag tribe where he served as an interpreter for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit.
Can you imagine that? The same “kind” of people who ripped you from your home, stole years of your life, and who are most likely responsible for the disease that killed your family, and what do you do? You show them grace. You love them. You help them. You make it possible for them to survive and thrive in this new world.
This story reminds me of the story of Joseph in Genesis who was sold by his brothers into slavery. When he meets his brothers again after more than 20 years of being apart he tells them, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”
Though it is important for us to always remember the travesties that have happened in our past, let us not forget what is even more important: the grace and forgiveness made possible for mankind to extend to each other through the grace that we have experienced from the Creator of the Universe when He sent His Son to die for us.
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Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV
It was Tuesday the 23rd of December, which is to say it was literally the busiest day of the year in the salon where I was working. I was staying late to give grandma her Christmas perm, and grandpa his Christmas haircut.
My usually timely grandparents had gotten caught in some traffic so grandpa dropped grandma off at the door in order that I could get started on her hair while he parked the car. I smiled and waved from the shampoo sink when I saw grandpa come in. I smiled as I saw him head right for the coffee bar and pour himself a cup. I thought it was odd that he hadn’t removed his coat—it was warm in the salon with all the people and all the hair dryers going. What was even more odd was his hand was shaking badly as he carried the coffee over to where he was going to sit. After settling grandma into my chair, I went to check on him. Grandpa insisted he was fine so I proceeded with grandma’s perm.
While grandma’s permanent solution was on, I started to cut grandpa’s hair. I asked him how their lunch outing was that grandma said they had enjoyed earlier that day. He couldn’t remember. Not only that, but he couldn’t remember much about his day. This was not at all like him and alarm bells started going off in my head. Worried, I told him I thought maybe we should go to an urgent care because he wasn’t acting quite right. He refused (normal) so I suggested perhaps he should let me drive them home. He said okay and more alarm bells went off. I knew if he was giving in to me driving him home something was really wrong.
I finished grandma’s perm and grandpa said he had to use the restroom. He was in there a while so I sent grandma to check on him. Grandpa had felt himself starting to collapse and had slid onto the floor in the bathroom. He couldn’t get up. I didn’t know if he was having a stroke or what. Fortunately, one of the other clients was a nurse and came over to assess him. He was getting less responsive so we called an ambulance.
Grandma and I followed the ambulance to the emergency room. I remember walking up to the emergency room door holding grandma’s hand and feeling grateful. It took me off guard, the amount of gratitude I felt in the moment despite how worried I was for my grandfather. I felt gratitude that grandpa had been blessed with so many healthy years on this earth. I was grateful that this had happened at a time and place when I was with grandma, and where there was a nurse to help give aid to grandpa until the ambulance arrived. Gratitude can truly change our perspective of any situation. Even when it has an outcome we don’t like.
Grandpa ended up just having a common infection that had gotten out of hand. He was treated and released that night. He was able to celebrate Christmas with us two days later. We had lots of reasons to be grateful that year. But even if grandpa hadn’t been okay, we still would have had lots of reason to be grateful. Being grateful in only the good seasons isn’t enough.
When bad things happen and we start to doubt God’s goodness, we should pray and ask Him to remind us of his many past blessings and of the ways He has cared for us through other troubled times. Remembering His goodness will restore our gratitude.
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I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15 NIV
One of my favorite hymns growing up was, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It has always been curious to me that while I don’t consider myself a “music person” (rarely do I listen to music when I am by myself), there have been many times when the words of hymns come floating back to me right when I need them. I am much more a person who focuses on the words of a song than the tune to which those words are set.
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is still one of my favorite hymns. I am not a fan of songs that repeat the same three or four lines over and over again. The lyrics to this song are so moving.
One of my favorite lines goes like this:
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!
What peace we often forfeit because we choose to carry the weight alone and not invite God in. Jesus is our friend, He wants to do life with us and share the load—but we shoulder the load alone if we don’t first give our heart to Him. He is standing by ready to help us! The lyrics of this song carry even more weight when we consider the trials this author faced prior to writing this song.
The author of this song, Joseph Scriven, knew well the comfort God could bring when it seemed like he was losing what mattered most to him. In about 1845, Joseph lost his fiancée; the day before their wedding she drowned in a lake. Devastated, Joseph decided to immigrate from Ireland to Canada. While in Canada, his mother wrote him of a crisis she was facing. He wrote her a poem in response and sent it to her. This poem was published anonymously and, even so, gained popularity.
In 1860 Joseph once again fell in love and planned to wed, only to have this second fiancée pass away from tuberculosis before the wedding. Joseph threw himself into ministry and charity work and spent his life helping the poor. Meanwhile, that little poem Joseph had penned continued to gain popularity. Still no one knew who had written it. A time before his death Joseph fell ill and a neighbor who was staying with him found a paper with the manuscript of “What a Friend” written on it and questioned Joseph regarding it. It became clear that Joseph had penned this now-famous poem.
Joseph knew pain. He knew what it felt like to need a friend to help him carry the load of pain. Like Job blessed the Lord despite losing everything, so Joseph could praise the friendship and comfort he found in Christ.
Joseph wrote “What a Friend” out of such great sorrow and as a poem of encouragement to his mother. How many of us could, and would, truly do the same? Do we have the faith that after losing one of those most dear to us, that we can say, what a friend we have in Jesus?
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The crucible for silver and the furnace for god, but the Lord tests the heart.
Proverbs 17:3 NIV
I have never tried to make pottery. I have seen demonstrations of people making pottery and I love looking at pottery at craft shows, but it is not something that I have ever tried. What I have tried though, is making glass beads which is similar in concept.
Since I was 7 I have loved beading. When I was 14, my father brought home a stack of old beading magazines (yes, they make magazines devoted to beading) and I saw an advertisement for a set-up to make your own glass beads from home. Wow! I delved into the research of glass bead-making and asked for an introductory class for Christmas. I took the glass bead-making class and instantly fell in love! I saved my money, I bought my own small, glass-working torch, and all of the other things I would need to turn glass rods into usable beads.
I fell in love with how the glass rod would start to melt and become pliable in the flame. There is indeed an art to wrapping the molten glass around the metal rod (the mandrel) and spinning the mandrel until a nice, even sphere is formed. But, of course, it’s not quite that simple. If you stick the glass rod into the flame too quickly instead of slowly inserting it to melt the glass, it will shatter, sending glass flecks everywhere. Conversely, even if you are successful in introducing the glass rod to the flame, it is another thing to wrap the glass neatly around the mandrel, and then to spin the mandrel quickly enough that a sphere takes shape, but not too quickly that the glass becomes misshapen. If you are successful in doing all of that, there is the final step of working the bead at the back of the flame so that the bead has enough time to cool so that when set in the kiln it won’t lose its shape. However, if you wait too long then the bead will cool too quickly, causing thermal shock to set in and shattering the bead before you have time to put it in the kiln. All of that is just if you are doing a simple bead with one layer of glass! If you want to introduce any intricacies to the bead, then you have to do multiple rounds of heating and cooling the glass rods while keeping the bead slowly rotating within the flame. It can take a while to produce a beautiful detailed bead.
Sometimes one of the glass rods being introduced to the flame will have collected a bit of dirt or dust. Usually when this happens the flame instantly burns away the impurity leaving clean, workable glass for the glass bead. Other times, if the piece of dirt is too big, or doesn’t fleck off in the flame, it can leave a permanent smudge in the glass. Once the glass bead is in the flame a little longer, the speck usually disappears from view, but not always, and even if you cannot see it, the burn mark from the impurity will still remain.
This reminded me of our relationship with God. He has so much patience waiting for us to become who we were meant to be. Like the glass introduced too quickly to the flame, some people immediately want nothing to do with Him. Others are more pliable. We all have sins and stains, like the glass rods can have dirt and debris. Sometimes these are little things which when corrected leave no trace of having ever been there. Others leave deep indents on our souls that we will always carry with us.
It is sometimes startling to see a speck of dust catch bright orange in the flame and then float off, burning itself out before it even touches the table top. Sometimes I feel the same way when I am being put through the refining fire. It is hard to have pieces of me flecked away. Many times I don’t even realize that there is a problem until God turns the spotlight up and I see it as bright as the speck of dust that is on fire in the flame.
What about you? Has God ever uncovered an aspect of you that you would rather keep hidden? Has He put you through the refining fire? It isn’t always a comfortable experience to be shaken and molded by God, but just like the beautiful blemish-free glass bead—the end result is always worth it!
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For by Him all things were created, in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities- all things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16 ESV
Have you ever met a friend of a friend—someone that you have heard lots about over a period of time? Your friend tells you stories with this friend in it, what they do, what they say, and how they react to things. You get all excited to meet them, you have a mental picture in your head of what they will be like, and then you meet them. And they are nothing like what you thought! You realize that despite what your friend said, you filled in the blanks with a lot of your own preconceived notions and totally changed the character of this person. Have you done this with God too?
I remember having a discussion with someone once. We were both around the age of 16. We were at youth group and while most of the kids were practicing a skit for the upcoming Christmas program, he and I started talking and it turned into a discussion of the essence of who God is. I remember this guy saying, “Well to me God is … .” I don’t remember exactly what he said but I remember that it was clear that he was basing his assessment on what he thought with no scriptural backing whatsoever.
I don’t know exactly how I responded to his statement but if I could go back I would say that God is not defined by what we think of Him. He is the great I Am. The One that never changes. The One that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We may not like certain aspects of His personality; we may be uncomfortable with some of His characteristics; we may not like how He has handled mankind’s sin and situations in the past, but that doesn’t change the fact that we don’t define who God is.
In our modern world we are moving more toward a pantheistic society, meaning that it is increasingly accepted that anything can be God and God can be anything or everything. If you believe that, that is fine. But that is not the God of the Bible. Scripture tells us clearly who He is. It tells us what He is like. We are given guidelines of how we are to live our life, principles to live by. The Bible gives us numerous examples of causes and effects: doing x causes y, and vice versa. The Bible makes it clear what He is all about. He is not defined by who we think He is. He is who He is, and we can accept or reject Him, but we cannot make Him into who we want Him to be. We serve a God that is abounding in grace and mercy; He is faithful and true; slow to anger, forgiving, and compassionate; full of wisdom. He loves us so much that He sacrificed His Son in order that we might spend eternity with Him. And God was willing to send Jesus to die even for those who despise Him! It is our choice. He is a good God. He is a just God. He is God.
What image do you hold of God in your mind? Perhaps you have a hard time picturing Him as a God who really cares and loves you, or perhaps you see Him as a father who only disciplines. Whatever your view, if you believe in the God of the Bible, I encourage you to spend time in His Word. Invite Him to show you His nature and His loving kindness. He will reveal Himself to those who really want to know. After all, only what He says matters.
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12 We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.(A) When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
2 Corinthians 10:12 NIV
Do you ever think it would be easier to be completely happy if you lived in a bubble—similar to Little House on the Prairie where their goal was to build a house in the middle of open acres where they wouldn’t have many neighbors. I think it would be easier to be content and sincerely grateful if I were in the middle of a wide open prairie with no neighbors in sight with whom to compare myself.
When I focus on all the blessings God has given me, I find it easier to be content when I am not comparing my life to others. When I am spending more time at home and less time on social media, it is easier for me to not compare myself to others.
I came across a quote by Charles de Montesquieu the other day. The quote was this: “If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think they’re happier than they are.” It is not enough for us to just be happy; we don’t want just a nice house, or a comfortable income, or maybe a vacation each year. No, we want it all—plus some. We not only want a nice house, we want it to be slightly nicer than that of our peers. We want a slightly greater income than those around us. We want to go on vacation and have it be a little fancier than others around us. We want it all—plus.
We get so focused on looking at what others have that we don’t stop to appreciate what all we have been blessed with. Who do we think we are to tell God that we appreciate His blessings but could He bless us just a little bit more? The tragedy of this is that these same people to whom we are comparing ourselves are probably doing the same thing—comparing their lives to ours! While we sit comparing ourselves to each other, we totally overlook the unique blessings that God has showered upon us.
We have seen examples of this kind of thing in the Bible too. Remember King David? He was, as I said, King. He was ruling God’s Chosen People. He had wealth, prestige, and power. He had beautiful wives. But . . . he didn’t have Bathsheba who was the wife of another man—Uriah. Oh he got her—but he sacrificed a lot. When Bathsheba conceived a child, he ended up basically having Uriah killed. Sadly, this child died. There was a wedge now in David’s relationship with God until he repented. He lost his peace of mind. He lost his integrity. And, the Bible says, the sword never departed from his house. That is a steep price. All because he found something (or someone) he didn’t have and on impulse decided he needed it. Oh what needless pain was caused because David stopped focusing on all he had been blessed with and instead craved what Uriah had. (Read the full story at II Samuel 11 and 12.)
Why do we feel the need to compare our blessings with the blessings of others? We spend so much more time comparing our blessings than we do thinking about the Giver of those blessings. What God must think when He sees us not being grateful simply because He didn’t bless us in the same way that He blessed others in our lives!
It is so easy to get distracted with the things of this earth—especially the things we want but do not yet possess. We can spend our days being jealous and envious, comparing ourselves with others, or we can carry our list of wants and needs before God and then release them to Him, trusting that He is able to do infinitely more than we could ever imagine but He will do only what is best for us.
