ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

A visual reminder of a famous quote: "The
fragrance remains in the hand that gave the rose."

Have you recently endured (to paraphrase a classic children’s book) a horrible, terrible, no-good very bad day? Such are times that we chafe a bit at Bible verses that command us to be thankful. You know, like this:

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18)

That doesn’t leave much room for griping about people, problems, pressures, or other perturbing things of life. Impossible? We might think so. And then we run into people who live on a higher standard and inspire us. One was my former pastor, who married us 41 years ago and recently died just after turning ninety. Yes, ninety. At his memorial, his daughter shared that she’d found some of his old journals, dating back nearly forty years. Every day he had written down things for which he was thankful to the Lord. Thousands of thankful items! And that included the difficult, discouraging years of caring at home for his wife, who slipped away slowly of dementia.

All circumstances.

Impossible, except with God’s help, and trust that He knows the bigger picture.

I’ve been around Major Worriers in my lifetime and have to admit to being one myself. But I’m chastised when I read God’s command: “Do not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:6).  Right after the command, the “how”:

….but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Some Biblical clues on nurturing that “attitude of gratitude”:

“He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:57)

“For He is good, His love endures forever.” (1 Chronicles 16:34)

“From Him and through Him and for him are all things. To Him be the glory forever!” (Romans 11:36)

I could cite more verses, but maybe the compelling image is the vision John had of what happens in heaven:

“I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13)

With worshipping angels as role models, what more can I say? Except—to be grateful for the earthly role models that God has placed in my life…like a faithful, devoted pastor who, every day, expressed in his own handwriting his gratitude to God.

BACK TO THE BASICS

O

Okay, our refrigerator "bulletin board"
 is messy, with notes and lists
and more--but it works for our busy lives.

Our family calendar, attached to the side of the refrigerator with monster magnetic clips, has been anticipating 2023 since I bought next year’s calendar at a Dollar Store the end of the summer. (Okay, Dollar-and-a-Quarter Store.) At that time, I mark important birthdays, anniversaries and known medical appointments for the next year. Then I take a deep breath, tuck the new calendar under the current one, tidy up other "must-keep" papers and lists, and wonder what 2023 will bring.

For the most part, I’m fairly organized (like thinking ahead with the family calendar), but life doesn’t always send neatly-tied packages. That’s especially true of a folder on my desk I’ve randomly filled with “good stuff” to reconsider “later.”  Then “later” gets later and later. Recently, in cleaning it out, I found decades-old notes that cited principles expressed by the late Dallas Willard, author of The Spirit of the Disciplines (1988). And I thought, Yes!

In this past decade the world has welcomed the pare-down/simplify messages of folks like organizer guru Marie Kondo. In a sense, Willard did that in choosing significant spiritual goals. In my notes, he emphasized these practices;

1.       Identification—Know who you are. Jesus knew His calling as “the Bread of Life” and “The Way, the Truth and the Life.”  As “Bread,” He offered spiritual nurture, as “the Way,” spiritual direction.

2.       Dedication—Know Who you should please. Jesus said He came to give the Father glory (John 17:4). Alas, we’re prone to focus instead on others’ approval and self-glory.

3.       Prioritization—Know what you should accomplish in life. Our culture pressures us into certain “success” categories. And while we should develop and use our God-given abilities, the ultimate priority is to worship and serve God. Jesus did just that in commencing His ministry by claiming the calling of Isaiah 61:1-2: to tend to the practical and spiritual healing of the world.

4.       Concentration—Aim for the “best” instead of mediocre “good enough.” Luke 9:51 says Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

5.       Meditation—Make a habit of prayer. Remember: Jesus spent nights in prayer. [In recent years, when troubled by insomnia, I’ve learned to “go through the alphabet” in recalling the worship-worthy names and attributes of God.]

6.       Relaxation—Take time to enjoy life. Balance work/ministry and play. Aim for even 10-20-minutes daily, doing something off the to-do list. Withdraw weekly (the “Sabbath”) and annually (“vacation”).

7.       Delegation—Let others help you. Remember, Jesus drew disciples around Himself. Don’t wait for the “perfect” friend or helper. Let God gather burden-bearers and task-helpers to you.

My husband practices #6 (“relaxation”) with televised sports. When I sit down to watch and keep him company, besides noting the score, I endure the “good life” commercials. You know the ones: shiny trucks zipping up rough mountain roads, parties where alcohol flows, or young “hip” adults snapping selfies of each other on their $1,000+ smart phones. He mutes the sounds on those; we both know they aren’t God’s “good life.”

In my very ordinary home and life, I’ll continue trying to organize life’s essentials by culling paper piles and remembering commitments via that $1.25 calendar. But I also know I sometimes need to step back and ask the essentials of Willard’s principles:

*Is my life spiritually balanced?

*Am I purposeful in seeking God through this action?

*Will people, in interacting with me, be able to see past my humanity and get a glimpse of Him? 

IN OTHER WORDS

To borrow a saying, it takes an
international "village" to produce
a body of worship hymns.

You probably know this classic hymn by Joachim Neander that German Christians began singing after its composition in 1680:

“Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren.”

Don’t speak German? Maybe these English words will resonate and also help you recall the tune:

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.”

It's one of my favorite hymns, and now even more meaningful after learning about its journey to my native tongue, English. I thank a never-married Englishwoman, Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878), whose name as “translator” is quietly inserted in the credits of some four hundred hymns, many still included in hymnals.

Born in London to the home of a silk merchant, she was taught at home by her mother. At twenty-one, she traveled to Dresden, Germany, staying with relatives. There, she learned German and became interested in the rich heritage of German hymns, including those by John Wesley and leaders in the Moravian movement.

 As her translations came back to England, they were heralded for being “terse and delicate” in the complex task of bridging two very different languages. Her name would eventually share the credit lines of some 400 hymns. Besides Neander's (above), the better-known hymns would include:

Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates

Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying

If Thou Would Suffer God to Guide Me

Jesus Precious Treasure

She also translated biographies of founders of “sisterhoods” helping the poor and sick. In England, she advocated for women's rights and higher education. Later a resident of Bristol, she used her own funds to buy and upgrade apartment buildings to provide decent, affordable housing for its poor.

 Her lifespan was short—she died in her 50th year in 1878. She never married. But her legacy lives on through the stout, robust German hymns that she “gifted” to the English-speaking world through her bilingual and poetic skills.

 Miss Winkworth’s largely unsung role is a reminder that God uses all sorts of skills to advance the Gospel, and that includes sharing the story of salvation through song. It comes to us through gifted composers, poets, translators, and supporting musicians. “We are God’s fellow workers,” Paul said of Apollos, whom he said “watered the seed” he had planted (1 Corinthians 1:9). Certainly, the gifts of hymn-translation—as Miss Winkworth so diligently practiced--also belong in the category of “fellow workers.”

 

WORM THEOLOGY

 A friend had shared fresh produce from his garden, and I could hardly wait to taste that ear of corn, picked within the day. I didn't expect a side of protein: a corn borer caterpillar nibbling its way down one of the succulent yellow rows. I'd experienced “wildlife” in corn before. I learned to just cut out the “offending” portion. Still, it reminded me that anything is vulnerable to attack. And in everyday life in our fallen world, the “bad stuff” we can't see right away is fully visible to God.

Maybe that's why I find special comfort in the “omni” attributes of God: His omnipresence (He's everywhere), omniscience (all-knowing), and omnipotence (all-powerful). When I feel bewildered or defeated by what is gnawing into my life, none of it is a surprise to God.

I think that's why Psalm 139 is so meaningful to me. Sometimes I'm tempted to feel like just another anonymous person on this planet. But this passage reminds me that I am significant. God created me for a special purpose and I am known to God. He knows what's rattling around my brain--my thoughts are fully known to Him (v. 2). He knows my current and upcoming circumstances. Distance doesn't matter (vv. 7-10). Darkness doesn't hide him (vv. 11-12). He knew me from the time I was a few dividing cells inside my mother's womb (v. 13). He watches sadly if I turn away from Him and do my own thing.

If I make negative "all-about-me choices"—like caterpillar munching down a delectable row of corn kernels—well, He sees that negative path. He also knows how to point the purging knife of the Holy Spirit at the right spot and take out the pestilence. He gladly answers the psalm's concluding prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (vv. 23-24)

THANKS-SINGING

(A monthly post on a hymn of the faith.)

Something deep inside me is stirred whenever I open a hymnal and sing—in my heart or aloud—the hymns of its “Thanksgiving” section. Some of them five centuries old, they remain timeless in telling the bigger story of being thankful. One bigger than the annual “turkey feast” day we have in our times.

Take this one by an unknown Dutch patriot, which celebrated the freedom of the Netherlands from a century of Spanish domination. It found its way to a collection of Dutch songs in 1626.

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;

He chastens and hastens His will to make known;

The wicked oppressing, now cease from distressing,

Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

More wartime—and unimaginable human suffering--birthed another. Europe groaned under a Thirty-Year War (1618-1648), during whose latter years a German lad, Martin Rinkart, was called to be a pastor in Eilenberg, Germany. The walled town turned out to be a city of refuge amid terrible bloodshed and plague. He would spend the last 32 years of his life ministering to the sick and suffering. And he would write the hymn that begins:

Now thank we all our God/With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done, In whom His world rejoices;

Who, from our mothers' arms, Hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) had a warm-cold-hot spiritual experience. A Lutheran pastor's son, he studied for the ministry but rationalistic influences extinguished his youthful faith. Then in his late thirties, a serious illness drove him back to devotion to God. About that time he wrote a 17-stanza poem titled “Peasant's Song,” inspired by a harvest festival in Northern Germany. Shortened, it became popular throughout the country. An English translator provided the lyrics that start, “We plow the fields and scatter,/The good seed on the land,/But it is fed and watered/By God's almighty hand.” The song shifts to gratitude with this verse:

We thank thee, then, O Father,/For all things bright and good,

The seedtime and the harvest,/Our life, our health, our food;

No gifts have we to offer,/For all Thy love imparts,

But that which Thou desirest,/Our humble, thankful hearts.

Born about the time Claudius died, Henry Alford (1820-1871) in 1844 offered this Thanksgiving hymn:

Come, ye thankful people, come,/Raise the song of harvest home;

All is safely gathered in,/Ere the winter storms begin;

God, our Maker, doth provide/For our wants to be supplied:

Come to God's own temple, come,/Raise the song of harvest home.

While the first verse celebrates the harvest, the next three refer to the final harvest of God's people. This is the final verse:

Even so, Lord, quickly come/to Thy final harvest home;

Gather Thou thy people in,/Free from sorrow, free from sin;

There, forever purified,/In thy presence to abide:

Come, with all Thine Angels, come,/Raise the glorious harvest home. Amen.

I'm aware that some folks consider classic hymns antiquated and useless. I dare to disagree. They're full of theology and bursting with awe and humility, conveying worthy thanks to the God who sustains us.

A choir and beautiful scenery celebrate Alford's harvest hymn in this You-Tube:

ComeYe Thankful People Come - Henry Alford - HD - Bing video

The one that follows is also worth singing-along-with.

SIMPLE DO'S

        These are two pages from one of my exhaustive 
Bible concordances, but the tiny print and compact
columns are probably a good picture of ALL
those 613 laws facing early Jews.

The law library at the University of Washington was my favorite place to study—away from roommate drama—during the two quarters I attended there (1969-70). No, I wasn't a law student (I was completing some journalism classes), but I knew that my need of a quiet study place could happen amidst the tall shelves of thick law books. So many laws! Thousands of tomes to interpret them!

A few years later I learned of an burdensome spiritual number: 613. That's how many commands good Jews of Bible times were expected to obey. Of that number, 365 were things not to do, and 248 were things to do. Of the “police force” (the Pharisees) pushing all those laws on people, Jesus declared, WOE! All of Matthew 23 jabs at the picky-picky laws they felt duty-bound to impose.

I'm grateful God set the “basics” at ten (commandments), not hundreds. And that Jesus augmented the stark “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not” commands of Moses' time with the compassionate do's and don'ts with The Beatitudes (Matthew 5) as well as His other teachings. Also: that scripture includes other parcels of teaching that support and explain the basics of simple, godly living.

One such passage is Psalm 15, by King David. He wasn't perfect, but he loved God. As a warrior-king, not a priest, he couldn't serve in the Jerusalem temple. But he seemed to yearn for a life of devotion such as he observed in the priests who lived and worked on God's “holy hill” (v. 1). The character traits he highlighted are still true for believers today.

*INTEGRITY. David spoke of a seeking a “blameless walk” (v. 2), despising vile lifestyles (v. 4a) and honoring godliness (v. 4b).

*TRUTHFULNESS. His spiritual role models had impeccable speech (“speaks truth from his heart,” v. 2b), and didn't slander or slur another's reputation (v. 5).

*GODLY CONDUCT. For this character trait, David looked at how someone handled money. He commended those who kept their word “even when it hurts” (v. 4), lent money without exorbitant interest (“usury”), and never accepted bribes (particularly, never against “the innocent”--v. 5).

Throughout all three of these character traits I hear echoes of the Ten Commandments and Jesus' teachings about loving and serving one another. And I'm grateful I'm not burdened by more than 600 Levitical do's and don'ts of long ago. The traits David highlighted transcend the centuries. And they can be journey markers until Christ calls us Home—to Heaven, where integrity, truthfulness, and godly conduct are the norm, for everyone there.

MICAH'S NUTSHELL

We know it's fall when the neighborhood squirrels turn our back fence into a narrow highway to rush a neighbor's fallen walnuts to their winter hideouts. Packed into each knobby nut is the nutrition they'll need to survive the winter. I think there's a parallel here with the Old Testament books of prophecy. They have a lot of “woe” and “shame on you” going on in passages that call for a grasp of turbulent ancient history in what we call “The Holy Land.” The problem was, the people weren't preparing (like our industrious squirrels) for a time of deprivation or a better, back-to-God future.

Enter Micah, who lived near Gath, famous for its fallen non-hero, the giant Goliath. Like other prophets, he tried to warn people that God's judgment would come if they didn't turn from sin. In the midst of a negative communication there's a jewel that cries out, “Notice me! Obey me!”

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. --Micah 6:8

To put it in modern lingo:

*Following God is a good thing and it isn't rocket science.

*Be honest and just.

*Be merciful. Life isn't just about you.

*Humble yourself before God.

As for that last command, I think of Peter's similar teaching:

Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

Context always matters, and especially so here. Micah 6:6-7 shows how twisted the people's understanding of how to approach God had become. You catch hints that they were observing the practices of pagan nations around them—folks whose “religion” required elaborate sacrifices of livestock and even human babies:

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (v. 7)

Instead the message was simple: uphold justice, be kind, obey God. They represent faith in a “nutshell.” The nutrients that can sustain God-followers when times get tough.