I've been seeing these countdowns of gratitude by friends on Facebook lately. You know, Day 1 I'm thankful for ... Day 2 ... and on and on.
I'm not sure whether I missed the memo or what it is, but I thought I would give an honest effort to examine what I am thankful for.
This has been a spectacular year for my wife, Mary, and I. When 2012 began, we were excited and happy and -- yes -- thankful for our two churches we were serving. We had moved over a five-year period from having a congregation to having friends. I'm aware that being friends, as opposed to being friendly, with congregations can be a struggle sometime. It's difficult at times to be a pastor to someone if you're great friends. Still, time crawled by and I looked up and saw great friendships developing. The churches weren't growing as quickly as they once did, we had lost some members to death and some had moved from the area we lived in outside Covington, but all-in-all, things were rosy as the dusk of 2011 slipped into the dawn of 2012.
As happens with the United Methodist Church, however, we got "the" call, and we were asked to move to Eunice with churches (in what we call a charge, which is simply a cluster of churches) also in Kinder and Iota. We happily said yes, and in late June, off we were.
You never know, really, how these move things are going to turn out. Developing new relationships is, I imagine, always difficult, but truthfully it is difficult for me because at my core, I'm shy. (There are some who would dispute that statement as apparently coming from a nutty persons, but it is true.)
So, in the time since we moved, we've begun the slow arduous process of again forming, growing, increasing the depth of relationships. We've seen friendships be planted like crops in the spring, and we've seen relationships deepen and flourish.
That being the case, it is time I think to be incredibly thankful to the God who has watched over our steps all along the way.
We are at a time in this country, it seems, where whining is the national pastime, not baseball. We complain about the president, the Congress, the courts (supreme and otherwise). We complain about what we have and we whine about what we don't. We do comparison shopping, noticing what others have and what we do not as if we somehow should have been given things and others should not.
The prosperity Gospel came along about the time I was born, but as far as I know, the two things weren't connected in any way. Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel or the health and wealth gospel) is a Christian doctrine that says that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth. Based on non-traditional interpretations of the Bible, often with emphasis on the Book of Malachi, the doctrine views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in God, he will deliver his promises of security and prosperity. Confessing these promises to be true is perceived as an act of faith, which God will honor.
The problem I have with the theology, and I have a rather large disagreement with it, is that I see plenty of wonderful, faithful persons who aren't blessed financially. So, by the theology of these rather famous persons (Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Joel Osteen, Bruce Wilkinson, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland and many others), if you're not receiving financial blessing, something must be wrong with your faith. That doctrine is difficult at best, depressing at worst. And it reduces the faith one must have to simply be thankful for WHATEVER one has rather than just the good things in life.
His Word tells me, "Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness."
His Word tells me, "Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe."
And His Word tells me, "Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart."
Summing it all, if we had moved to Eunice and things were rotten to the core, we should still have been thankful to a God whose faithfulness endures forever. If we had lost all our money on the move, lost our health, lost our pets, lost the love of our children and grandchildren, still, still we should have been thankful to a God who watches the lost and the least as well as those who are prospering as the world sees it.
In the end, I see a wonderful Christ hanging in pain on an old, rugged cross. I see an unusual Messiah looking out over some persons who sought to kill him rather than give up the power they had stolen for their own. I see a God, incarnate, loving and faithful, who gave up all his power that existed in glorious waves of love coming from the throne itself. I see love where love had not existed, and love is far different than material things.
Yes, I'm thankful today because when I couldn't possibly save myself, Jesus did it for me. That's true prosperity, I reckon.
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