Star Word 2024 - Prep for 2025

If you follow me, you've probably noticed that I write about star words twice a year...at the end and at the beginning. (One year I recapped all my star words here.) This year I'm a bit late, and I don't have my new star word yet, so here's what I usually write at the end: a recap of my year with my 2024 word "gratitude."

As usual, I wasn't thrilled with this word when I got it.  Hadn't I already spent enough time talking and thinking about gratitude?  I've even been processing the idea of toxic gratitude.  When depression is hitting hard, do not tell me that "there's always always always something to be thankful for."  There were many years during which I would agree about being always thankful, and probably even quoted Paul's letter to the Thessalonians which says to "be thankful in all circumstances" (1 Thes. 5:18).  If I ever did that to you, I'm sorry.

Unfortunately, Paul's words have been overused and abused, and I don't think the average white middle-class American has much understanding of the kinds of circumstances Paul had encountered, anyway.  I know I haven't experienced war or jail or shipwreck or whipping, and I hope I never do.  But I also hope I'm better at having empathy than I used to be, and better at just listening.

It may have happened this year that I got in the habit of ending blog posts and sermons by saying, "Thanks, God."  So I guess the gratitude has found its way in at least a little bit.

I used to be somewhat religious about writing thankfulness lists in my journals, and writing thank-you notes to people.  Now I'm more likely to send a text or email. I think I'm probably more likely to be thankful in the moment than in looking back to write a list.  And maybe that's better anyway.

Only God knows for sure.

Thanks, God.

Star Word 2024 - Gratitude

I must confess that I was disappointed to get this word.  I feel like I already know enough about gratitude. On the other hand, if you've read my previous January star word posts, you know that I am often unhappy with my new words and still I learn from them once I get past the initial dissappointment. 

I've read the research, so I already know that gratitude is helpful for changing negative perspectives into positive ones, and that gratitude can be a mood lifter.  I tend to focus my gratitude lists on the current moment or day, so maybe I'll work on some broader-perspective gratitude lists.  Here's one for the past year:

2023 Thankfulness

1. LGBTQIA topics went from being the elephant in the room to being ok to talk about at our church.
2. I completed the third year of the three-year commitment of being moderator of the presbytery (one year as the moderator elect, one year as moderator, one year as past moderator).
3. My husband Rob got diagnosed with Crohn's and by December was starting to see some signs of remission from the second attempt with a biologic.
4. Rob had an MRI that showed a chiari malformation which would explain the symptoms that didn't quite fit with Crohn's.  Hopefully by the end of 2024 I'll be able to be thankful for getting that treated.
5. Finished my church office move into Zaccheus' treehouse, aka the theology thicket.
6. I finished the year in a better place mentally, spiritually, and emotionally than where I started.  Last year's star word "wholeness" helped me remember to keep working on that.

Whole-year gratitude is hard.  What am I forgetting?

Another aspect of gratitude that I could research more is toxic gratitude.  Sometimes gratitude does not help.  Some days maybe it's better to sit with whatever is in my head and heart and allow it to be whatever it needs to be.  What makes gratitude toxic?  Maybe when it's overly forced, or when it's forced on us by someone else with statements like, "Well, at least you're not...." 

In the beginning of this call to ministry, I was much better at writing thank-you notes than I am now.  Maybe part of this year's star word pondering will be to write more thank-you notes and try to use up all the unused packages of thank-you notes in my stationery box. (Which is also stationary when I'm not using it.)

This year, for a change, I did NOT start by looking for Bible verses about gratitude because I think I know most of them by heart already.  So this year, I'll be on the lookout for verses I'd forgotten or missed, or verses which add to or change my understanding of gratitude.  The verses that come to mind are either psalms or from Paul's letters. But what does Jesus say about gratitude?  In a quick gooogle, I find that Jesus blesses the bread at the feeding of the five thousand (eg. Matthew 15:36), and thanks God for hearing his prayer to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:41), but it seems more an assumption of attitude than a rule to follow like it is in Paul's writings.

So, despite my initial dislike of this word, still room to grow.

Thanks, God.

P.S. In 2023 I began the practice of attempting to end every blog and sermon with a "Thanks, God."

P.P.S. I'd love to hear your thoughts on gratitude!

Change

 

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Let them praise the Lord for his great love  and for the wonderful things he has done for them. Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and sing joyfully about his glorious acts.

-Psalm 107:21-22

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

-Ecclessiastes 3:1

I never thought I would live in Kansas, but I think I must have told God at some point that I wanted to be in the center of things and this is God’s subtle humor.  Kansas is the center of the United States – not the center of attention or the center of the action, but the geographic center.  And so here we are.

Sometimes on social media someone will ask which season is everyone’s favorite and I’ve come to realize that I like all four because I like the fact that there is always change.  I grew up in Southern California where the seasons didn’t change that much.  The ocean provides a buffer, and mostly it’s warm and sunny.  It’s beautiful, but also a little boring. 

In Kansas there are all four seasons. Right now, we’re in the one in which the leaves turn yellow and orange and red because the temperatures are getting close to freezing at night.  As it gradually gets colder, we’ll have some freezing and hopefully some snow.  In the spring as things warm up we’ll have flowers and the bright green of new leaves on the trees.  Then we’ll have the heat of summer which is the growing season here, and the fields will be green with corn and soy and wheat.

There are lots of reasons for the seasons that are astronomical and agricultural, even entomological (freezing temps keep the bug population down), but I think God was also doing something psychological with the seasons – preparing us for the inevitability of change.  Everything changes, except change itself.  Everything changes except God.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. -Hebrews 13:8

Despite the seasons giving us a constant lesson in the reality of change, we spend a lot of time and energy managing change, and grieving change.  I tend to be a change instigator, and yet I have discovered that I actually don’t like change that I didn’t instigate.  Though sometimes I do.  Sometimes I get excited about change, especially when it means someone is trying something new.  But when it means the breaking of a relationship because someone is moving away or going to a new job or dies, that’s not so much fun. And yet, it happens.

Psalm 107 encourages us to praise God for his wonderful acts, and the apostle Paul tells us to thank God in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), so today I am thankful for the seasons and for the subtle way they help us to understand the constancy of change. Who knows what God is up to in all these changes?

"God moves in a mysterious way." --William Cowper

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?  And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

--Romans 11:33–36

Thanks-Living

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18, Psalm 96 here [1]

How many of you have a thanksgiving to-do list?  Have you ever made a list for yourself about things God wants us to do?  Do you ever ask yourself this question: What does God want me to do?  There are lots of ways to answer this. Some of us are called to go to the Ukraine or China* or to other places.  But what if we’re not so clear?  What do we do here and now?

This might have been a question the Thessalonians were asking when Paul wrote them the letter we read from this morning.  Scholars think this is probably the earliest part of the New Testament, written about 20 years after Jesus was crucified and resurrected.  The Thessalonians, like most Christians in that time, had expected that Jesus would have already come back by then, and he hadn’t, so now what?[2]  What are we supposed to do now?

So Paul writes to encourage them – keep on being faithful and hopeful, encourage one another, take care of one another, be joyful, prayerful and thankful.

You might have been thinking, as we read the scripture, that Paul is bossy.  Isn’t he?  He’s always telling us what to do, how to be, what not to do, how not to be.  Every single one of Paul’s letters has this.  Why is Paul so bossy?

Paul wants to make it very clear that our faith is not just about what we believe—it’s also about how we live. Not just about giving thanks, but about living thanks…thanks-Living. Paul wants us to not just know Christ, but to live Christ.  Because Paul wants us most of all to be effective missionaries – people who live the gospel are missionaries to the world, whether we go to other countries or stay in our hometown, we have opportunities to demonstrate God’s love to people.

In the book Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, a story set in the time of the Civil War, there’s a man, a fiddler who is a drunk. He only knows how to play six songs. His military unit camps near a house where there's a powerful explosion. A young girl is severely burned and is near death, and her father sends for a fiddler to help ease her way to heaven. The fiddler enters the dark cabin where the young girl suffers in excruciating pain. From her deathbed, she says, "Play me something." He plays a tune. "Play me another." The fiddler plays his drinking tunes slowly, thinking it more appropriate to the circumstances. Soon he has exhausted his small repertoire. "Play me another," she says as she struggles against the pain. "Don't know no more," he says. "That's pitiful," she says, "what kind of a fiddler are you? Make me up a tune then." He marvels at such a strange request. But he has a go at it.

Soon the girl passes away. Her father thanks the fiddler for lifting her to heaven with his fiddle. A transformation takes place in the fiddler. . . "Time and time again during the walk back to camp the fiddler stopped and looked at his violin as if for the very first time. He had never before thought of trying to improve his playing, but now it seemed worthwhile to go at every tune. . . ."[3]

The fiddler found new life, new purpose, in using his gift to help someone.  He didn’t have to go far or have a great plan.  He just said yes to a simple request.

Each of us has opportunities that are unique to us, unique to who we are and where we are, unique ways to live out our thanks to God by using the gifts we’ve been given, being comforting, helpful, patient, encouraging.  The more we let the Holy Spirit work in us and through us, the more we can be on a mission every day to show God’s love to the world.

Paul gives us some benchmarks for living out God’s love in our scripture today, and I’ve broken them down for you into a to-do list.  I invite you to spend some time talking to God this week about this list.  Let’s ask God this week to help us make the most of the opportunities we have to show our gratitude to him by how we interact with the people around us, so that through us, they might know God’s great love, too.

That’s thanks-living.

--

ThanksLiving To-Do List

• Respect those who are working with you, leading you, and instructing you. Think of them highly with love because of their work.
• Live in peace with each other. 
• Warn those who are disorderly.
• Comfort the discouraged.
• Help the weak.
• Be patient with everyone. 
• Make sure no one repays a wrong with a wrong.
• Always pursue the good for each other and everyone else. 
• Rejoice always. 
• Pray continually. 
• Give thanks in every situation.

Because . . .this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-18 CEB

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[1] Rev. Melissa Krabbe, a sermon preached on Sunday, November 19, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church, Sterling, KS

[*] Before this sermon, Ginger Reed spoke about the Thank Offering and grants to various ministries (read more about PW here), and Christian Dashiel and Marisa & Brett Callan spoke about the mission trips the will be leading next year taking students from Sterling College to China and Ukraine.

[2] Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Interpretation: 1 & 2 Thessalonians (John Knox Press)

[3] Schnase, Robert. Practicing Extravagant Generosity: Daily Readings on the Grace of Giving (Kindle Locations 279-289). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition. Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997); pp. 231– 232.

Peace Incomprehensible

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, October 8 2017 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS.  

Listen to sermon audio here. 

Read Philippians 4:1-9, Isaiah 41:1-13 here.

--

An exasperated husband asked his wife, “Why are you always worrying when it doesn't do any good?”

She quickly piped back, “Oh yes it does! Ninety percent of the things I worry about never end up happenning.”[1]

--

What’s wrong with worry?  We all do it.  But worry can be an obstacle to gratitude and a roadblock to faith.  Both Jesus and the apostle Paul tell us not to worry.  So does Isaiah in the passage we read today.  Twice he says, “Don’t be afraid.”

It’s not like there aren’t things to worry about.  There are plenty.  There always have been and there always will be.  There were reasons to worry back when these words from Isaiah were written.

Isaiah was writing the words we read today to comfort Israel.  But for the first 39 chapters of this book, Isaiah has warned the people to repent and change their ways in hopes of averting the disaster that’s coming, the impending capture by the Babylonian army and being carried off to exile. He’s given them as many opportunities as possible to turn back to God.  But then in chapter 40, Isaiah switches to comfort, reassuring them that though their exile is now unavoidable, they can still have hope.

Israel’s greatest fear in being captured and taken away from Jerusalem was losing God. They didn’t necessarily want to do what he said to do, or hang out with God, but they didn’t want to lose him altogether.  What Isaiah tells them over and over is that no matter how bad it gets, God still promises to be with you. God is still God, and God has not forgotten you.

Four times God says to them in chapter 41, “Do not fear, I will be with you.” 

I am holding you.  I’m even holding your hand.  I’m still your God and you’re still my people.

They were worried about the future.  We too worry about the future.  We make plans and we worry whether our plans will work out the way we want them to.  There’s an old joke that says the best way to make God laugh is to make a plan.  One of our Bible writers, James, also tells us not to get too caught up in making plans.  He says,

 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.”  Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)

We don’t know the future. Worrying about the future gets us too caught up in looking ahead, just like too much nostalgia gets us too caught up in looking back.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.”

God has a plan.  In Isaiah’s words God is reminding Israel that he is working things out in the current time, and in the years and centuries to come.  God was working to bring them a savior, who we now know is Jesus. He says in verse 4:

“Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord, am first, and will be with the last.” --Isaiah 41:4

Jesus says almost these same words in Revelation.[2]  “I am the alpha and omega.”  Since the beginning of time, God has been working.  Long after we are gone, God will still be working, taking care of things through Jesus Christ.

Jesus knew we humans struggle with worry.  He was fully God and fully human, and in his humanness he struggled with the same things we do.  In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, he talks in some depth about worry.

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,^[j] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 

We can almost imagine the people’s response hearing this.  What do you mean, Jesus?  We’re not the same as the birds.  They don’t wear clothes.  They don’t have to cook their food.  They don’t have to have money to pay for things.  Of course the birds don’t have to worry, but, Lord, we DO!  And so Jesus continues his argument by asking them a rather challenging question:

²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

Well, no, Lord, of course not, but….

²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Ouch.  Little faith?  Ok, Jesus, I guess you really mean it, then.  So we ask, what do we need to do?

 ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God^[l] and his^[m]righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Jesus knew that we would need to work on it….to practice trusting instead of worrying, to practice living in God’s peace. And he knew that his presence would help us with this.  Near the end of his life, Jesus explained this to the disciples, as he was preparing them for what was going to happen to him over the next three days, his crucifixion and death.  He knows they’re afraid, and they’re worried, so he tells them in his final evening of teaching, in the words we find in John 14-17, how to have peace.  He says, “Abide with me.  Remain in me and I will remain in you.”  (John 15)

“I have told you all this so that you will have peace.  In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16)

Jesus’ name that we use most often around Christmas time is Immanuel.  It means God with us.  Our greatest assurance, the surest way to know deep joy and deep peace is to know Jesus and to keep him with us, to keep turning to him.

That’s what Paul is reminding us about in his words that we read today from Philippians.  Keep turning to Jesus.  Keep focusing on the good and the right and the lovely.  Keep bringing your concerns to God and finding the things to be thankful for.

We talked last week about how thankfulness takes practice.  We grow when we work on it, when we practice it daily, when we write about it in our little books or journals, when we say thanks to God daily.  Thankfulness isn’t always easy.  Sometimes it’s incredibly hard, but Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, tells us:

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who are in Christ Jesus.

(1 Thess 3:18)

That’s why we need to work on thankfulness…and peace. Peace is what God promises us through our faith in Jesus. Peace with God, peace that goes beyond our understanding.  The Message version of Paul’s words makes it clear what happens we keep turning to God for peace:

Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Phil 4:7)

Peace isn’t always easy.  We need to practice finding God’s peace. (Practice peace.)

Instead sometimes we’re better at practicing worry. It’s easier.

Ralph was head over heels in trouble, and didn’t know what to do. A friend advised, “Ralph, you’ve got two hands, why don’t you go do something?”

“I using my two hands,” Ralph replied, “I’m wringing both of them.”[3]

In the letter to the Philippians, Paul was writing from prison to a church that he dearly loved.  They were doing well, doing great ministry, and he didn’t want them to get off track.[4]  Remember to have joy.  Remember to reorient on God and know God’s peace.

If we don’t take the time to find peace, we can end up living up around the ceiling.  Using a room as the scale, calm is at the floor.  Whenever something makes us stressed we go up from the floor.  If we don’t get back to calm before the next stress, we go up even more, and if we keep staying stressed, we end up living around the ceiling, always stressed, always worried, easily angered or emotional.  We go from crisis to crisis, stress to stress, anger to anger…and stress becomes normal.  (Like surface tension – one drop makes the whole glass spill over.)

What happens when we face challenges is that our natural response is to react and go from rational thought to fight-or-flight response.  Our brains shift to using our amygdala, the part of our brains designed to deal with emergencies….which is useful in the case of an emergency, but not so helpful for dealing with everyday life.  The more that we spend time practicing seeking God’s peace through prayer and meditation, the more we retrain our responses, and the more we are able to let God guide our thoughts, words, and actions in the face of trouble.[5]

Paul says in the Message version:

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

We need to follow Paul’s instructions to focus on the good things, and not on our worries.

A recently licensed pilot was flying his private plane in a cloudy day. He was not very experienced in instrument landing. When the control tower was to bring him in, he began to get panicky. “I can’t see.  What if I hit something?” Then a stern voice came over the radio, “You just obey instructions, we’ll take care of the obstructions.”[6]

Letting go of our worries is letting God take care of the obstructions.  God can see what we can’t see.  God can do so much more that we can do ourselves.

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." --Philippians 4:6-7

One of the hard things about faith is that it means trusting God even when we are struggling to know he’s there, and trusting that God’s peace will come, even if it doesn’t come right away.  One of the devotionals I read frequently encourages readers to thank God for his presence and his peace. 

Thank him for those things, even when we don’t feel it.  That’s a step in faith – trusting that God is there and that God’s peace will come.

The world is full of things to worry about, but we will miss opportunities to enjoy and to share God’s peace if we’re focused on our worries.  So Paul challenges us to pray about our worries and say thanks to God and trust God for whatever happens next.

There’s a moment in the Lord of the Rings series in The Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo is overwhelmed by all that has happened and he says to Gandalf:

“I wish it need not have happened," said Frodo. 
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”[7]

We too may not always like the way things are going, but whatever is happening, God has not left us to deal with it alone.

God has given us his son Jesus so that we can know his peace, and so that we can make the most of our time here on earth.  We won’t do it perfectly, but through Jesus, we also know God’s endless mercy and love for us.

There’s a song been stuck in my head this week that is good for helping to remember to keep taking our worries to God and finding God’s peace:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

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[1] http://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/the-benefit-of-worry

[2] David McKenna, Communicator’s Commentary (Dallas, Word Inc., 1994)

[3] http://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/wringing-his-hands   

[4] Maxie Dunnam, Communicator’s Commentary (Dallas, Word, 1982)

[5] http://www.ethicsdaily.com/when-anxiety-pulls-your-focus-off-of-god-cms-23182

[6] http://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/flying-in-the-clouds

[7] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12357-i-wish-it-need-not-have-happened-in-my-time  Watch https://youtu.be/pjAAC13al9s 

We Had It Better When....

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, October 1, 2017 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS.  Listen to the sermon audio here.

Read Exodus 17:1-7 and Colossians 3:12-17 here.

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Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be…[1]

Nostalgia is a yearning for the past. Reliving happy memories can be fun and even helpful, but it can also get in our way.  In our reading from Exodus 17 today, the Hebrews seem to have some misplaced nostalgia.

The nation of Israel is out in the desert with no water.  Not surprising.  Deserts aren’t known for having an abundance of water.  Lack of water has made the people grouchy, so they quarrel with Moses about it.  “Why did you bring us out here in the desert where there is no water?” In essence they’re saying, “We were better off back in Egypt.”

What’s wrong with complaining about needing water?

Were they really better off back in Egypt?

Let’s talk first about how they got here.  Over the past few weeks, we learned that they were living in Egypt serving Pharaoh as slaves.  The people cried out in anguish, and God heard their cries.  God sent Moses to negotiate with Pharaoh to let the people go.  Pharaoh was a tough customer, but after ten plagues, finally Pharaoh lets them go and they leave…but then Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them.  The Hebrews end up trapped between the army and the Red Sea, so God parts the water and the Hebrews cross on dry land.  And there was great rejoicing. (Yay!)

But that’s not the end of the story. As they’re making their way across the desert, the first stop is at an oasis, a place where everyone can fill up their water jugs….except that it turns out there’s something wrong with the water.  It’s bitter.  The complaining begins.  “Now what are we supposed to drink?”  So Moses asks God for help, and God shows him how to make the water drinkable. That first stop gives us a glimpse of what becomes an ongoing issue for this group….complaining.[2]  God has miraculously brought them out of Egypt and out of slavery, and at the first sign of trouble they seem to have forgotten God.  Their complaining gets in the way of being able to see that God is right there with them.

Soon they are complaining again.  “We need food.”  So God brings them manna.  I love the name “manna.”  It literally means, “What is it?”  Whatever it is, it’s there waiting for them when they get up every morning for the next 40 years, the entire time they are wandering in the desert.  It’s their daily bread, and a daily reminder that God is there with them, guiding them and providing for them.

And everything is lovely and they have a wonderful journey across the desert to the Promised Land…except they don’t.  They get to Rephidim and again there is no water.  So the people complain.  This time, they get so riled up they’re even ready to stone Moses, as if it’s his fault that there is no water there. 

And their complaint includes another now familiar refrain, “We were better off in Egypt.” 

·      They said this when they thought they were going to be killed by the Egyptian army next to the Red Sea and God parted the water. 

·      They said this when they were hungry and God sent them manna and quail. 

And here they are saying it again.

We had it better when we were slaves in Egypt.

When they were in Egypt they knew what to expect.  There was water and food.  They had homes.  But they also had back-breaking labor.  And when they complained about how hard the work was, Pharaoh took away the straw he’d been providing for making the bricks and told them they now had to gather straw as well. 

We had it better when we were in Egypt.

We probably all have favorite verses in the Bible, but what is your least favorite?

What is the worst verse in the Bible?  I’ll tell you what it is for me:

Do everything without complaining and arguing. – Philippians 2:14

Is that even possible?

When I first discovered this verse, I was shocked.  

Does God really mean this? 

Are we really supposed to be able to do this?

We lived in California then, and I was working at a laboratory as an executive assistant.  I hated my job, and I complained about it all the time.  The people were annoying.  The hour-long drive to work through heavy traffic was excruciating.  The work was stressful and boring at the same time.  I’m sure I could find more complaints to remember, if I kept working at it, because I had a lot of complaints.  I don’t think I ever had much good to say about it. 

So you can imagine how much that verse from Philippians got under my skin.

After we had moved away and I had left that job behind, and we were living in South Carolina where I was going to school full time, my perspective changed.  I started to see the good things about that job that I couldn’t see in the midst of my complaining.  At that job I made the most money I’d ever made…maybe than I will ever make.  I had health insurance, life insurance, a 401k, a health savings plan, and a host of other benefits.  I didn’t appreciate any of that until I was a full-time student with none of it, and I began to learn the importance of taking the time to look at our circumstances more carefully and find the things for which we can be thankful.

There were plenty of things for which I could have been thankful, but I was too focused on seeing all the things I didn’t like, instead.

We had it better when….

It’s been said that “Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson. You find the present tense and the past perfect.”[3]

The Hebrews are longing for the safety and security of Egypt, forgetting about the bad stuff, seeing only the good stuff.[4] 

I got into this same mindset about California.  I’d grown up there.  I had lots of great memories there.  I dreamed about going back there.  I wrote stories for some of my classes at Clemson, and they were always set in California…not where we lived, not where I worked, but at the places where I had childhood memories.  The pictures in my mind as I wrote looked like old movies with Los Angeles’ most famous landmarks in the background.  The more I dreamed about it, the more I was saying to myself, “We had it better when we lived in California…”

We went back there twice last year, and we made it a point to go to all the old places, and see as many old friends as we could.  And we got stuck in traffic. We sat on the freeway going 5 mph or less. And we got lost because all the cookie-cutter neighborhoods look the same.  And we started to remember all the reasons we had wanted to leave in the first place.

And we realized that even if we did move back there, it wouldn’t be the same anyway, because it’s not the same as it used to be, but more importantly, because we’re not the same people we used to be.

Ancient philosopher Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” 

Or, as the writer Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.”

The good thing about looking back is that it helps us see how we’ve grown, and helps us understand that we aren’t the same people we used to be.  When I look back at my younger self, I see how negative and judgmental I could be.  I see how much I’ve changed.  I also see how many hard things I made it through, and how God helped me all along the way.

The bad thing about looking back is that it can get in the way of what’s happening now.  We can’t go back, no matter how badly we want to.  Looking back we can see how God was there, but God is also here now in the present and God is doing things we can be thankful for NOW, and if we’re stuck on looking back we miss that.  It would be a bad idea to drive down the road only looking backward.  How far would you get before you run into something? Or run off the road?

God calls us to be thankful people.  It’s why we’re spending six weeks talking about gratitude, and why our theme verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God’s will for us who are in Jesus Christ.”

Being thankful might sound passé or trite.  Honestly, I was concerned that people would dismiss this series before we even started because it sounds too simple to just be thankful.  But then I started doing the research, and I didn’t have to go very far to find some really good reasons for us to work on being thankful.

1. You are what you think.  It turns out that our brains are constantly changing and adapting to what we’re asking them to do.  When we think, the synapses send impulses across the gaps to each other.  When we get into a pattern of thinking, those synapses move closer together to make it easier the next time.  Our brain rewires itself.  So if we’re complaining, it’ll be a little easier to complain the next time.  Or if we’re practicing being thankful, then that’s the new wiring that goes in, and being thankful starts to become easier.[5]  The more we complain, the more likely we are to complain, and the more we are thankful, the more likely we are to be thankful.  So we need to practice being thankful to become better at it.

2. It’s not just about our own brains, though.  Our way of thinking is contagious.  If we are complaining out loud, those who hear us are then more likely to complain as well.  But if we are thankful, they are more likely to be thankful.[6]

We can do our own experiments to see this in action.  Watch what happens as you go through your day and see how one person can change the direction of the conversation by saying something positive or negative.

One thing we learn from reading Exodus and watching what happens with Israel on their journey through the desert is that it’s easy to forget.  They go from praising God and giving thanks for a miracle to complaints and anger, as if God weren’t even there, as if God had never done anything to help them. And it became a habit to complain.

There was a woman once who was an incurable grumbler. She complained about everything.  One day her pastor thought he had found something about which she could make no complaint.  That year, the woman’s crop of potatoes was the best in the entire area. 

“For once, you must be pleased,” he said to her with a big smile. “Everyone’s saying how wonderful your potatoes are this year.”  But instead, the woman scowled at him and said, “They’re pretty good, but now I’ve got no bad ones to feed the pigs!”

It takes practice and conscious effort to get out of the habit of complaining, and remember to thank God for what he has done in the past, and for what he is doing now.  It’s why we keep on having the Lord’s Supper, and saying the words Jesus told us, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  To remember what God has done for us and give thanks.

It’s why we’re going to have opportunities for discussion about this on Sunday afternoons starting today at 2pm, so we can work on this together, and encourage one another and see how we’re doing.

And it’s why I have a gift for you. A notebook. A great way to practice being thankful is to write down what we’re thankful for.  Write something down every day.  It’s pocket-size so you can take it with you and write things down as you see them. Say thanks to God right then for each of these things, and work on rewiring our brains to be more thankful.

I mentioned earlier that the theme verse for this series is 1 Thess 5:18, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who are in Christ Jesus.”  Whenever we are putting our faith in Jesus, we are IN Christ Jesus.  The verses that Diane read for us from Colossians 3 are one of the many pictures in the New Testament of what that looks like.  It tells us we put on a new persona, like putting on a coat, as we allow the Holy Spirit to help us to wear compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

We’ve talked a lot about how Israel was complaining in the desert, and I mentioned that verse from Philippians that says we are supposed to do everything without grumbling or complaining. That’s a challenge to us all to work on that.  But it’s not a challenge to us to point out other people’s problems with complaining.  Instead Colossians tells us, “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other.”  This is about working on our own attitudes, not about pointing out other people’s problems.  We don’t know their situation.

Twice in this passage from Colossians, Paul tells us to be thankful.  “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.” (3:15)

Be thankful for all the ways God has brought us to this day. 

Be thankful for today. 

And keep on looking for all the ways that God is at work in our world today, so we can say thanks.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:17)

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[1] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/peter_de_vries

[2] http://www.crivoice.org/biblestudy/exodus/bbex21.html discussion of the bitterness and the wood

[3] source: http://www.jokebuddha.com/Nostalgia#ixzz4uBuLLyG5 attributed to Owens Lee Pomeroy

[4] There are benefits to nostalgia https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-nostalgia-is-good-for-you/

[5] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-science-says.html and https://psychpedia.blogspot.com.cy/2015/11/the-science-of-happiness-why.html

[6] Ibid