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In the previous three presentations on thanks, I described how I had somehow lost what the words "thank you" really meant in my life. I took time to study the word "thanks" in the Bible and as to it's origin in the English language.
I found that we need to have our eyes open to the fact that there is so much to be thankful for. It is when we recognize that God has done so much for us that thanksgiving can be a valuable characteristic, even in the bad times that come our way. When we confess our thanksgiving, things change in this world.
We also learned that the word "thanks" is really all about being grateful for the fact that someone would have given your life some thought at all. When we say thank you for something someone did of us, we are really saying, "thank you for thinking of me." The fact that God thinks of us at all is something we have good reason to be thankful for, even when we are in situations we would rather trade at that moment.
Today I want to focus on the fourth characteristic of the word "thanks" I found in my studies. This one is kind of weird. At first I really didn't understand what was trying to be conveyed, but WOW, does this element of the word "thanks"have power to it. Let's dive right in.
There’s an element in one of the words used as "thanks" in the Old Testament of the Bible that is really kind of strange. In one of the definitions of the word translated as "thanks" there is this notion of casting down. The definition uses phrases like to throw down, to shoot and to cast when it defines the original language word translated as "thanks in certain verses in the Bible. How do these concepts relate to the word "thanks?"
I believe that this particular definition of "thanks" is pointing to our need to be intentional about giving thanks. It is so easy to just be in the moment without recognizing the power of God in that moment. Hard times make that doubly easy for us to do. Just keeping our head above water in the bad times is a full time job. Recognizing to be thankful takes a lot of effort. Sometimes the energy and the drive to make that effort happen just isn’t there.
When that drive to be thankful isn’t there, God still loves you! Even that point makes it that much more evident of our need to give thanks. When you are in a place where you can’t give thanks, Thank God because He doesn’t condemn you and go about dealing with whatever comes at you that moment. The more we do that the more we will recognize the power of giving thanks.
I thought long and hard about what God was saying when He used a word for Thanks that can convey a meaning of cast down or throw down or shoot. Then it hit me. This is speaking of determination.
In the Book of Ruth, we learn of this foreign woman who shows great determination to live a life of serving as a result of her being thankful. Ruth's determination literally changed history as far as God's people are concerned. Check out today's reading with me now.
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1:16-18 (NIV)
That's how we are to be when it comes to thanks in our life. We are to be as doggedly determined as Ruth was to follow Naomi. We are to be thankful and cast out our thanks because things change when we are that determined with the power of thanks.
I remember a movie about a Christian couple facing some interesting challenges in their life. One of the issues they faced came as they were trying so hard to have a baby. Time and time again they failed to get pregnant. One more time the wife found herself in the OBs office waiting on the results of a pregnancy test. In comes the nurse with the news, once again, she’s not pregnant!
You could see the devastation on the woman’s face. As she walked out of the office one nurse looks at another and with such compassion tells the other nurse how much her heart aches for this woman’s plight in life. Repeated failure in life has that affect on others. A sadness can come as the sad things that happen to us seem to be all we see in our lives.
The wife walks to the car and wipes away a few tears. She’s almost completely cried out over the number of times she has been in this position of disappointment. Then she musters up her courage and says something that I believe embodies the element of casting down when it comes to "thanks". She says, “God, even if I never get pregnant I choose to love you!”
Don’t you know that is a thanks that means everything to this God? Even if she never gets to live the life she feels she was so destined to live, she will still find it in her soul to praise, to thank and to love this God that thinks so much of her.
She’s in good company with that statement. That’s exactly what Shadrak, Mishack and Abendego said before they were thrown in the blazing furnace. They told the King that they would not bow down in praise (that's thanksgiving) to any god but God almighty. They knew that their God was mighty to save. They also knew that their God could do whatever He wanted to do with their lives. They were resigned to live this life, good or bad, thanking their God for all He had done for them. Then they said these words, “But even if He doesn’t save us…” we will still praise Him.
That’s a throw down of Thanks in my opinion. That’s what shoots an arrow through the heart of evil in this world. Even if this God of power chooses not to use His power to rescue us from the situation we find ourselves in at this moment, we still have SO much to be thankful for.
It is when we cast down our Thanksgiving like that, that the power of Thanks takes on a life of its on. I believe that we need to take times to be intentional about this kind of throw down. We need to stop from time to time and say, “Even if you never get me out of this situation, I still will love you - I still will thank you.”
It is when we cast down this kind of crazy attitude of thanks that God’s power becomes more and more evident in ways that actually might change some of what our circumstances look to be. We don’t give thanks to change God’s mind. We give thanks because God can’t change His mind! If He could change His mind He might change how He thinks of us. That would be a disastrous thing for sure.
We throw down our thanks because God is deserving of our thanks no matter what our life looks like. We cast out our thanks into a dark and hurting world because that thanks is filed with light and that changes things. We shoot words of Thanks like arrows because arrows pierce their target. The target of thanks in an evil world is the heart of that evil in the first place. Maybe our Thanks is a weapon God is using to defeat evil in our lives, in the lives of our family and in the lives of everyone we come into contact with as a result of the challenges we face this moment.
Cast down your praise! Throw down your Thanks. Shoot that gratitude out in random as well as focused ways. Watch as God’s power makes your stance something that this world finds totally amazing and is drawn to. Let Thanks can be the power that makes it so that we realize that our circumstance isn’t wasted in this world. That's what victor living looks like. Make thanks part of all you do in your world today.
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