Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is a particularly meaningful holiday for us as Christians, because the Bible is full of commands for God’s people to thank him. Here’s one such verse from the apostle Paul:

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you,” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

Paul commands us to give thanks, and makes it clear that this is God’s will for us in Jesus. We sometimes wonder, “What is God’s will for my life?” Well, here’s one clear answer: Give thanks to God!

But did you notice the fine print in this thanksgiving command? “Give thanks in all circumstances.” That phrase “in all circumstances” adds a wrinkle to thanksgiving, especially for us in the wake of Hurricane Ian. “All circumstances” includes being displaced from home and church, separated from loved ones, unsettled about our finances and future, and deprived of sleep. God calls us to gratitude even when we have less and feel worse.

Paul didn’t just write those words for us. He lived them. Paul suffered tremendously for the gospel. He experienced beatings, lashings, detractors, shipwrecks, sleepless nights, hunger, threats, thirst, and exposure. Yet he gave thanks to God in the midst of it all. Remember when he and Silas were arrested in Philippi, beaten publicly and then locked in prison with their feet in the stocks? How did they respond? They prayed and sang hymns to God through the night!

How do we give thanks in the hard times? How do we sing praise in the dungeon? I think part of the answer is to lean into the loss. Suffering has the potential to give us perspective on what really matters. When we are deprived of earthly comforts and hopes, we have an opportunity to treasure our heavenly blessings in Christ that nothing can take away from us.

Being displaced reminds us viscerally that heaven is our true home. Losing our stuff drives home the reality that we have riches in heaven that moth and rust (and storm surge) cannot destroy. A brush with our mortality can cause us to cling to Jesus as our life and his resurrection as our only true hope in the face of illness and death. No longer meeting at our favorite church building or at a preferred time slot or having access to our favorite programs challenges us to savor what really makes a church a church: the loving commitment we have as members to one another, the Word of God, and prayer.

We know in our minds that Jesus’ death and resurrection for us is the greatest gift of all, and that our salvation through that gospel outshines any other good thing we have in this life, just as the sun outshines a candle. But in times of loss we really feel how precious is the blood of Christ that purchased us for God. Jesus asked “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Suffering shows us the implied opposite of that statement. When we forfeit the world, we see more clearly that the greatest profit we have is for our souls to belong to Christ.

May we all be filled with an unsinkable gratitude this Thanksgiving as we reflect upon the goodness of God to us in Christ, even in hard times. Especially in hard times.

Pastor Jeramie

Sunday Services
5 p.m. at Fort Myers Community Church
8448 Cypress Lake Drive, Fort Myers

10 a.m. Chapel Service at Sanibel Community Church
1740 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel