Grace and Thanksgiving
by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 11/26/2008 at 10:00 AM
This morning I was pondering what I should write about Thanksgiving. Of course, I consider myself extremely blessed. Compared to most of the world, I am rich. Not only that, but I have a safe place to live and can travel freely. My family members are healthy and thriving. I recently retained my job while some friends lost theirs. I had a thought then: God's grace allowed me to remain employed. But then I had another thought: Who's to say it was not God's grace that my friends lost their jobs?
That sounds very callous. But we're quick to assign God's grace to the good things in life while blaming that other guy for the bad things. Do we really grasp the statement found in James 2:5? "Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?"
Rich in faith. Is that not the greater blessing in God's economy?
Some of our fellow Christians have it really hard this Thanksgiving. Not just those suffering in a poor economy in our country, but those suffering for their faith in other countries. According to Worldmag.com, Iraqi Christians are being stalked:
Thousands of Iraqi Christians have found threats like this under their front doors or stoops, in stairwells or shoved through their courtyard gates: "Be informed that we will cut your heads and leave your dead bodies with no organs and no heads in your stores and houses. We know your houses and we know your family. We will kill you one after the other. Depart the Muslim areas."
As a result many are fleeing into the neighboring countries of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Often they have spent all they have to get out. And in these countries they cannot get jobs.
The problem is most evident in Syria, where approximately 350,000 Iraqi Christians out of over 1.2 million total Iraqi refugees currently live. The Syrian border is only 80 miles from Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city with at one time a sizeable Christian population. Christians in recent decades made up about 4 percent of Iraq's general population, but according to church leaders in Syria they make up over 30 percent of its Iraqi refugee population.
This Thanksgiving, those Christians — and others around the world — are poor and not blessed by our flimsy standards. The things many American Christians will be thanking God for will never be realities for these refugees. And yet, I know they will be thanking God.
Last year, I saw a video about Iraqi believers receiving the Bible in their own language for the first time. One woman equated receiving the Bibles to an Iraqi saying that went something like this: "I thought that when I saw my beloved, I would experience the greatest happiness possible. But now that he is here with me, that happiness is exceeded."
It's a beautiful picture of the rich in faith. For they actually receive the greater blessing. Let's remember that this year. Let's be thankful for the things we have and the things we don't have. Perhaps in the latter God's grace abounds even more.
1. Joshua said the following at 11:23 AM on Nov 26:
Awesome post. My pastor gave a sermon on what we should be thankful for on Sunday (I wonder how many pastor's did the same thing). His title?
10 reasons to be thankful for the sufficiency of God's Word.
That quote by the Iraqi woman is significant. I've been a part several churches in a good dozen denominations and I can honestly say that most of them do not emphasize the importance of Scripture. It is how we know God!
2. Adam Sloope said the following at 1:39 PM on Nov 26:
I was thinking about this same thing this morning Suzanne! I think of all the people this holiday that are "poor" in my eyes and how we often feel so bad for them because they don't have much to be thankful for. Well, the richness of faith has been entrusted to those who are poor of the world. The depravity and brokenness draws people closer to Him so their faith all the more abounds, thus making them rich in faith! Persecution has this scientific affect of thermodynamics and those of us who will sit around out air conditioned tables in our cool downtown lofts can think we have much to be thankful about, but what about those rich in faith. Oh how upside down the kingdom is...BEAUTIFUL indeed. I pray the Lord would make me thankful for Him not circumstances.
3. Christina (in green) said the following at 1:52 PM on Nov 26:
In spite of probably not being able to enjoy tomorrow's Thanksgiving Dinner, I've never felt so Thankful in my life.
I don't know what the difference is - maybe I'm growing up? But the entire year has been a shocking revelation of everything GOOD that I should be grateful for.
Its been fun surprising my mom on occassion with little messages that say "Thanks for being such a great mom". I look forward to tomorrow and spending the day celebrating the wonderful gifts that God gave me when he gave me life on Thanksgiving Day 25 years ago (no...tomorrow isn't my birthday, but it still feels like it =p)
Maybe it was all that pain someone was writing about earlier this week that kinda makes you appreciate things so much more...
4. Priscilla said the following at 3:00 PM on Nov 26:
It's a tough night to be thankful here, Suzanne, so thank you for the reminder about what God's grace really means. Along with hundreds of others, I've been sitting watching TV through the middle of the night as terrorists rip their way through Mumbai. It's scary to watch gun battles, bomb blasts, hostage scenes in Colaba, Vile Parle, VT station, the Taj hotel, the Oberoi, Leopold's Cafe, Metro cinema...most of these are places I've spent time in when I worked there and it's just so scary to think of actual gun battles in some of the poshest areas of our biggest city. And then you call and message friends in Mumbai, and every time you hear from someone saying they're safe, and then even as you're heaving a sigh of relief, you're wondering about all those who didn't make it through, whether they were your friends or not and it's very hard to remember that God is still in control, and even that "who is to say that it is not God's grace" that will still pour through this terrible situation. And maybe even to give thanks, for the Bible does say that we are to give thanks in everything. But it is so hard tonight.
And just a few days ago, we had Philip Yancey sharing at a church here and talking about justice and reconciliation. Before he spoke, the All India Council of Churches showed a video about the recent violence against Christians in Orissa -- many were killed, abused, raped, churches were burnt, hundreds of homes were destroyed and some 60,000 people forced to flee their homes at one point. Just before Yancey spoke, though, there was a well-known Hindi song -- Mahima ho teri -- To God be the glory. And you had to wonder -- where is the glory? And then Yancey reminded us once again of the case of Graham Staines, the Australian missionary, who along with his two young sons, was burnt alive in Orissa a few years ago. That shocked the country, but what left people even more stunned was his widow Gladys Staines returning to her mission field in Orissa after it was all over, continuing to serve there and said that she forgave her husband's killers. No wonder that her region of Orissa was said to be one of the few spared in the recent bout of violence. And I had to accept -- there is the glory, when God's people allow him to shine his amazing agape love through them in the most horrific of circumstances, there is the glory.
And so, we shall give thanks, even for this. But do keep Mumbai in your prayers tonight. And to God be the glory.
5. Carol said the following at 10:09 AM on Nov 27:
Suzanne, please pray I will seek His WORD and His will daily and be a witness wherever I go as a substitute teacher. Help me be all I should and can be for Jesus.
Priscilla - May God's Peace and Power be made manifest to these radicals in India, of all places. May Jesus reign there and give our Christian brothers and sisters their daily bread. How can we sit and eat ours knowing even 60,000 have been uprooted? Lord, we turn to you for we have no other real help but yours.
I pray for our two relatives coming who do not trust in JESUS - even at age 85 and 60. Lord, help them see their need for you.
6. Leah said the following at 12:43 AM on Nov 28:
Re: Priscilla's comment about the Staines- Graham's daughter Esther is currently studying medicine and aims to return to India one day, too. She considers herself Indian, and when she sees tea plantations gets homesick for India. (Yes, it's her who calls it "homesick".)
I'm mildly surprised their region of Orissa was spared in the recent violence, though; they haven't been in India for a few years now.
And if you want something to be thankful for, do you know what Esther said regarding her father's death? (When she was no more than 13 or 14 years old)... "I thank God he found my father worthy to die for him".
Something else to be thankful for... the grandfather of one of my friends, who has consistently refused to have anything to do with God (even though both his sons are Christians), had a stroke a few months ago. Now in rehabilitation, he one day randomly asked his daughter-in-law to read the bible to him. For a few weeks, she and one of her daughters read the bible to him whenever they visited. They also read through a little book about understanding Christianity. In the back was a "believer's prayer". My friend's mother said to him "I'll leave this here for you to think about, and if you want, you can pray that prayer." He straight away said, "I don't need to think about it. I want to say it." He must be in his mid-70s at the youngest, and for decades and decades has brushed off his sons' attempts to share the gospel with him. To God be the glory, indeed!
7. Christopher from Albuquerque said the following at 12:25 AM on Nov 30:
We Christians in America (most of us, at least) know so little of real persecution. As I pray for these believers, I also pray that I will remember their suffering, and their faith in the midst of it, when I am tempted to complain about my life.