How often are you really thankful for all that you have? How often do you express that thankfulness? How often are you ever thankful?
I think being thankful has gotten a bad rap in our culture. Instead of being thankful, we have become a society of entitled people. We think we deserve what we have and what we want. We also think we deserve what other people have, and we try to gain it through almost any means possible.
Even as Jesus-followers we sometimes let envy raise its ugly head. But the antidote for envy is thankfulness.
Jesus is about to feed 4000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. After organizing the people, preparing them for easy food distribution, Jesus begins the process of a miracle. He starts by placing His hands on the available resources. When Jesus gets a hold of our resources, amazing things can happen.
But that is our first hurdle. We don’t want to give our stuff over to Him. We are often afraid that if we let Him have it, then we will suffer. We must have an image of a very miserly God, taking what isn’t His and keeping for Himself.
So we put what we have into Jesus’ hands, and what does Jesus do next. Our text tells us that He then gives thanks. This might seem odd for God-in-the-flesh to give thanks, but it isn’t. Even though He owns everything, including the bread in His hands, He wants to teach His disciples, and us, the importance of being thankful. He does this twice, once with the bread and once with the fish. No blanket thankfulness here.
What I find fascinating is that Jesus starts with seven loaves, and when He is finished there are seven basketfuls that get collected. Not a bad investment, indeed. I’m not saying that when we give our stuff to Jesus that He will ‘prosper’ us financially. Selfish wealth is sin. I think the lesson of the text is that we don’t need to spend time and energy worrying about our needs. When He is involved in our lives, when we surrender what we have to Him, He takes care of us. Even if persecution or famine or nakedness or armed conflict come, nothing can get between us.
I want to encourage you to begin a life of thankfulness, or at least renew your thankfulness. Thankfulness releases us from the slavery to stuff. As the old saying goes, we can’t take it with us, so we might as well let go of it now.
The Arnold Journey 