A Thanksgiving Devotion
from Treyton Oak Towers Chaplain Rev. Dr. Steve Cavanaugh
German pastor Martin Rinkart served in the walled town of Eilenburg during the horrors of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Eilenburg became an overcrowded refuge for the surrounding area. The fugitives suffered from epidemic and famine. At the beginning of 1637, the year of the Great Pestilence, there were four ministers in Eilenburg. But one abandoned his post for healthier areas and could not be persuaded to return. Pastor Rinkhart officiated at the funerals of the other two. As the only pastor left, he often conducted services for as many as 40 to 50 persons a day—some 4,480 in all. In May of that year, his own wife died. By the end of the year, the refugees had to be buried in trenches without services.
Yet living in a world dominated by death, Pastor Rinkart wrote the following prayer for his children to offer to the Lord:
Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom this world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms,
Hath led us on our way,
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.*
While it’s unlikely that any of us is personally facing anything like the situation Pastor Rinkart found himself in, we all have challenges that make it difficult to follow the apostle Paul’s exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to “give thanks in all circumstances.” But Pastor Rinkart’s response of thanksgiving serves as an example of how we can give thanks whether we are experiencing triumph or tragedy.
I would like to recommend three actions that can help us to give thanks in the worst of times (we don’t usually need help for the best of times).
First, focus on what you have rather than on what you want.
Richard Carlson, in his book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, wrote this:
In over a dozen years as a stress consultant, one of the most pervasive and destructive mental tendencies I’ve seen is that of focusing on what we want instead of what we have. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how much we have; we just keep expanding our list of desires, which guarantees we will remain dissatisfied. The mind-set that says “I’ll be happy when this desire is fulfilled” is the same mind-set that will repeat itself once that desire is met (pp. 161-162).
On the other hand, the apostle Paul shared his experience in Philippians 4:11b-13—I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Second, trust that God is at work for your good, even when you can’t see it.
Back in WWII, Corrie ten Boom and her family were arrested and sent to a German concentration camp for helping Jews escape the Nazis in Holland.
James Emery White, in an article, “Thankful for the Fleas,” Christianity.com Blog (2017), shared this story:
The barracks where Corrie and her sister, Betsy, were kept in the Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbruck, were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested. They had been able to miraculously smuggle a Bible into the camp, and in that Bible they had read that in all things they were to give thanks and that God can use anything for good.
Betsy decided that this meant thanking God for the fleas. This was too much for Corrie, who said she could do no such thing. Betsy insisted, so Corrie gave in and prayed to God, thanking him even for the fleas.
Over the next several months a wonderful, but curious, thing happened: They found that the guards never entered their barracks.
This meant that the women were not assaulted. It also meant that they were able to do the unthinkable, which was to hold open Bible studies and prayer meetings in the heart of a Nazi concentration camp. Through this, countless numbers of women came to faith in Christ.
Only at the end did they discover why the guards had left them alone and would not enter into their barracks: It was because of the fleas.
Finally, understand how deeply, completely, and eternally God loves you.
Romans 8:28-39 is perhaps the pinnacle of the apostle Paul’s description of God’s love for us in Christ. He begins with this well-known verse: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (v. 28).
A few verses later he adds these words: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (vv. 31-32).
Then, he sums up with these stunning statements: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 35, 37-39).
My hope and prayer for this Thanksgiving season, as well as year-round, is that we would learn to give thanks in all circumstances as we focus on what we have, trust that God is at work even when we can’t see it, and understand how deeply, completely, and eternally God loves us.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
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