Category Archives: Thankfulness

Slammed Doors

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Today’s date will always be important to me. It would have been Nate’s and my wedding anniversary, #43. Though we can’t celebrate the same way we did on this date for 4 decades, my heart is still celebrating that God brought Nate and I together in the first place.

By 9:00 am my thoughtful children began checking in with me, wondering if I was in need of comfort. Although I’ve been wearing Nate’s wedding ring on a necklace today, I can honestly say I haven’t been sad. “Grateful” is more accurate, because yesterday God showed me something special about my marriage to Nate.

Last night my women’s Bible study group met for the last session in a 10 week study called “Believing God.” Throughout the weeks we’ve been learning there’s a vast difference between believing in God and believing God. We’ve memorized 5 practical statements of faith:

  1. God is who he says he is.
  2. God can do what he says he can do.
  3. I am who God says I am.
  4. I can do all things through Christ.
  5. God’s Word is alive and active in me.

Each week we’ve stood and recited these 5 important facts at the beginning of our discussion group, and after 10 weeks, we can easily say them from memory. Personally, I hope I never forget them.

Our last homework week asked us to plot our lives on a timeline, placing large dots along the line to mark significant events. The goal was to note how God showed up again and again in our lives at important junctures and that he was there all along, even during the rough patches.

As I studied my completed timeline, God pointed out something new. His presence in my life hasn’t been just to open doors for me but also to slam them shut. As my finger traveled along the pencil marks, I suddenly realized how many catastrophes he’d saved me from by his closed doors, that they were equally as important as the ones he opened.

At the time, though, I suffered, sometimes crying out to God through tears, “How could you?!” One example was the break-up of a dating relationship with a non-believer that I dearly wanted to keep. But if that door had stayed open, I would have walked through it, eliminating the possibility of marrying Nate. And Nate was God’s choice of husband for me.

And so, as November 29th passes by one more time, I’m not sad. As I finger Nate’s wedding band, my only thought is gratitude. And I hope I’ve learned that when God closes doors in front of me, even the ones I really want to walk through, it’s only his way of marking my timeline with a great big blessing.

“Teach me how to live, O Lord. Lead me along the right path.” (Psalm 27:11)

Satisfying Our Hunger

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Louisa and I set our alarms to rise early this morning. We needed to stuff two 20 pound turkeys, peel 15 pounds of potatoes, and finish preparations for an extended family Thanksgiving dinner. Cooking side-by-side made it fun, and we chatted away through the hours.

I thought of the rest of the world and how so many don’t have a chance to sit at a dinner table like most Americans do on Thanksgiving. Some people have never known that very-full feeling we all experience on this day of feasting, and it’s almost embarrassing to say we experience it often.

Thanksgiving fell on an early date this year, because November 1 was a Thursday. So when I opened my Spurgeon devotional today, I didn’t expect it to be about the holiday. After all, he was writing from England, where Thanksgiving doesn’t exist. But lo and behold, his thoughts were perfect:

“Hunger is by no means a pleasant sensation. Yet blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Such persons shall not only have their hunger relieved with a little food, but they shall be… filled with goodness by Jehovah himself.” *

If only we made it our top priority to “get filled” the biblical way rather than trying to fill ourselves by satisfying hungers that are inappropriate, out of proportion, or  even sinful. Attempting to find satisfaction by indulging in the wrong things does bring a measure of pleasure at the time, but the feeling never lasts. Badly chosen pleasures don’t fill us for long, because they don’t address the hunger pangs of the heart and soul.

There’s only one way to satisfy those hunger pangs, and Spurgeon said it well: “The Lord will satisfy soul-longings, however great and all-absorbing they may be.”

That super-full feeling after a big meal eventually disappears, and tomorrow our stomachs will growl again and we’ll be quick to fill them up. No matter how much we eat, we’ll always be hungry in a few hours, because stomach-satisfaction is short lived. And though we don’t think so at the time, other pursuits to get satisfied apart from the Lord’s doing it are just as repeatedly needy as a stomach.

We don’t like to experience hunger pangs, but God actually encourages them, at least spiritual hunger pangs. Spurgeon says, “It is well to have [soul]-longings, and the more intense they are the better. Come, let us not fret because we long and hunger, but let us long and hunger to see God magnified [in our lives].”

On this Thanksgiving night, I’m most thankful not for the lavish feast we consumed today but for the ongoing banquet the Lord offers to anyone who seeks to satisfy soul-hunger through him.

By the way, while I’m speaking of being thankful, the clean-up crew was pretty high on my list, too!

“The Lord satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” (Psalm 107:9)

* Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, Daily Readings by C.H.Spurgeon

A Good God

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Last weekend we marked the 21st anniversary of my father’s death in 1991. Dad was a late bloomer. He dated only one woman and didn’t get started on that project until his 40’s, but that slow start never disadvantaged him. He and Mom made it to their 50th anniversary, and I remember well the party we planned for them.

Several members of their original wedding party from 1941 were able to join us, bringing their remembrances with them. Granddaughters modeled Mom’s wedding gown and a bridesmaid’s dress, and a Chicago bakery recreated their wedding cake. The celebration was like an exclamation point at the end of a good marriage, because the very next month God called Dad to heaven.

Whenever something happens with unusual timing like that, it’s probably God’s way of getting our attention. He orchestrates things purposefully and hopes we’ll learn from it. What message might have been buried within the unusual timing of Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary being followed so quickly by Dad’s death?

One lesson might be the importance of waiting to make big decisions until God gives the green light. When Dad’s 20’s and 30’s were passing him by, he could have panicked, wondering if he’d ever find the right girl. Would he miss out on married love, a home with children, grandchildren?

Marriage is a decision of considerable consequence, and Dad wisely waited until all indicators pointed to the right time and the right woman. But marrying at 42 made it seem unlikely he and Mom would reach their 50th. God, however, said, “Just watch me.” Dad’s late start had been the Lord’s perfect choice after all.

A second thing we can learn from the timing of Dad’s death is that God has control of our calendars. We write and rewrite them, but God makes last- minute rearrange- ments whenever he chooses. So we learn it’s a good idea to remember whose endorsement we should seek before we make our plans.

One last thing we can learn from the Lord’s timing with Dad is that God is good. Scripture tells us God delights in giving gifts to his children, and Dad’s making it all the way to the 50th was one of them. The trick for us now is to remember that the God-is-good character quality is still a part of God, even when his gifts might seem few and far between.

Our Lord doesn’t change. He was a good God before 1991, has been good since then, and will be good throughout eternity. If he does or doesn’t show that to us, it has no effect on whether or not it’s true. God himself put it best when he said, “I am who I am.”

Dad’s been gone a long while, and sometimes we think it’s a shame he’s missed 21 years of family life. But of course he’s having his own special good times in God’s family, where the Lord’s goodness can be visualized every single day.

“No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11)