thanksgiving gratitude.

There are limitless gifts I could thank God for on this rainy, cozy Thanksgiving morning at the end of 2020. Here are five of them.

He is purifying and refining His Church.

Suffering always exposes what’s really in our hearts, what we really live for. Always. And for most of us, 2020 has been a year of suffering, in big and small ways. Trials have a way of bringing out our true nature — the entitlement, pride, control, distrust, anxiety, and fear. This is just as true for Christians as it is for non-Christians.

And the question we are faced with, as believers, is, “What will we do with our raw, exposed hearts?” What will we do with the darkness that 2020 has unearthed, darkness we could perhaps ignore or cover up in years past when life felt more predictable and comfortable?

As we wrestle with this great “What now?”, God is purifying and refining us.

I have seen Christians fall away from the church and from God this year. I have seen them sink deeper into depression and isolation and bitterness. I have seen them cave to the spirit of fear and anxiety. I’ve seen them lash out and attack others. And my heart has grieved for their imprisonment, for the lost opportunity to humble themselves and grow mature in their faith through suffering.

But I’ve also seen Christians surrender themselves more fully to the mighty hand of God in all the unknowns of this year. I’ve seen them choose to fight for joy and gratitude in darkness. I’ve seen them confess sin and idols they didn’t even know were there. I’ve seen them set free — not from the presence of sin and idols — but from the power of them. I’ve seen what’s in darkness brought out into the light. I’ve seen people carry one another’s burdens and  friendships grow and truth spoken in love and reconciliation take place. I’ve seen real repentance. I’ve seen sacrifice as people lay down their lives to serve God’s church and their unbelieving neighbors.

Suffering is a gift, my friends, if we have eyes to see it, not because the brokenness of a sinful and fallen world is good, but because our God is mighty to redeem even the darkest of times. He is in the business of resurrection.

God is opening doors for the gospel.

One of the campus ministries our church partners with shared that they’ve never experienced more open doors for sharing the hope of Jesus on the college campus. Students showed up in August feeling vulnerable and scared and uncertain about what their future holds. They wonder if the promise of the American dream holds true anymore. They wonder if there’s anything else out there.

God is using the suffering of 2020 to open hearts that previously clung to self-sufficiency and control and comfort by taking away those very things, and then, for some of them, beginning to ask the question, “What really matters in life?”

He’s given us as Christians inroads with our neighbors as we ask them, “What has this year been like for you? How can I pray for you?”

He is using our year of COVID-19 and cultural unrest and disillusionment to bring souls from darkness into light.

God is giving us opportunities to love our enemies.

On this Thanksgiving, most of us find ourselves with more enemies than we ever had before. People are hurt by a difficult year and they take out that hurt on one another. They allow disagreements over politics or COVID practices to erect harsh walls in their relationships. They criticize. They attack and shame anyone who’s different. If they’re an ethnic minority in our country, they’ve had old wounds ripped open and watched as many of us who are supposed to be safe (i.e. the Church) for the marginalized, rub salt into those wounds by denying their existence.

There’s a lot of uncertainty right now, but one thing we as Christians are very certain about is what to do with our enemies. We forgive them. Seventy times seven. We pray for them. We don’t indulge and nurse our friends’ bitterness toward their own enemies, but bring them along on our journey of learning the costly art of forgiveness.

We trust God together, the Judge of all the earth, to do right, to avenge our wrongs. We return love for hatred. This doesn’t mean we let people take advantage of us or idolize people-pleasing at any cost. We set healthy boundaries for relationships. But we do it out of faith in God, not out of spite or a desire to exclude. Even when we must break allegiances, we choose not to despise those who mistreat us.

In doing this, we bring much glory to the God who loved us who were formerly His enemies, and who gave His very own Son to rescue us and bring us into His family.

God is exposing cultural sins.

The sins of America are sins of materialism, pride, greed, self-sufficiency, entitlement, denial of absolute truth, sarcasm, racism, oppression, selfishness, and judgmentalism. The way I face this laundry list of ugliness is to take a good long look at the log in my own eye before I look at the speck in anyone else’s eye.

I am an American, through and through, and so these cultural sins are my sins. I see them more clearly in 2020 than I ever have before. Other people are not the problem. I am the problem.

This is a gift, for which I give thanks. It’s a painful and humiliating gift, yes, because I do not like to face the darkness in my heart. I’d much rather rage against the darkness in somebody else’s heart. But God’s will is to deal with me, with my American sins and idols.

So I name these sins. I call them what they are, instead of minimizing or excusing them. I list specific examples of them as they surface in my life. I repent of these sins, asking God to root them out and kill them. I do this aloud, to trusted friends who can help keep me accountable. I thank God for the suffering that accomplishes this rooting out more effectively than easy times do. I choose to wait on Him in that painful, pruning, dying place, rather than choosing distraction and numbing. And as Peter Scazzero says, I let the old birth the new.

God frees me from my American sins to live for His values alone, even when it makes me unpopular. My allegiance is to Christ.

As this process happens, again and again, I experience great joy.

God is giving the Church the opportunity to shine as a beacon of hope in a dark world.

As we feel the despair of a culture deteriorating into hateful social media exchanges, relative truth, complaining, and cynicism, the light of God’s radical love shines all the brighter. Friends, instead of getting swept away by the negativity, I plead with you to see the present cultural climate as a chance to make our Jesus more beautiful to everyone around us. Not so that we’ll look good — so that He’ll look good. So that a watching world will see that there is hope, no matter what.

Jesus is so very different from the world. He loves righteousness and justice and He doggedly defends the oppressed, but He doesn’t do it with bitterness and shaming. He loves those whom He created in His image. He sees beneath opinions to real people with real souls. He doesn’t tear down; he builds up. He isn’t insecure and doesn’t need to defend Himself or be silent on matters of truth out of fear of being rejected. He doesn’t need to surround Himself with people just like Him. He is humble and meek. He doesn’t cling to His rights. He associates with those that are unattractive and unpopular.  He sacrifices His comfort and His reputation for others. He is rock-steady in uncertain times. He satisfies the deepest, most aching needs of humanity. He offers real forgiveness, real hope for hopeless times.

Jesus has become more beautiful to me in 2020 as I see the stark contrast between the Person that He is and the spirit of our age. I want to be like Him.

My mouth shall recount Your mighty acts and saving deeds
all day long; though I cannot know the number of them.

Psalm 71