Thanksgiving–Making it a Holiday When We Truly ARE Thankful

Better a bite of dry bread [eaten] in peace than a family feast filled with strife. Better to have a dish of vegetables where there is love than juicy steaks where there is hate. (Proverbs 15:17, 17:1). Holidays are challenging times! Unlike getting together to “watch the big game,” we sit opposite from one another at the table and are forced to have real conversations. For some, Thanksgiving‬ is a hallowed ‪tradition‬ fueled by happy childhood memories. For others, it becomes a source of stress and a dread of having to be around difficult family members.

I would challenge you this week–if your traditions have become too painful, stressful, expensive, or cause arguments and hard feelings among your family–make some modifications that are conducive to ‪PEACE‬! I knew a family once who hated cranberry sauce, but always opened a can and set it on the table because of tradition. Silly, huh? Well, how many times do we do that same thing but in other ways? Make some new traditions if you must…just make them good, easy, and worthwhile.

Make Thanksgiving a good memory for your family, rather than a dreaded event. Simplify your meal plans if that’s what it takes. You don’t have to serve a 250-item buffet to have a good dinner. Don’t create more stress by spending your whole month’s grocery budget on one meal. If you create an atmosphere of love and fun (and true gratitude) a dish of mac and cheese is as good as turkey and all the trimmings! And a meal eaten at a restaurant is not a crime, if that makes it special for your family–especially for the one who’s otherwise have to do all that cooking. I’ve even wondered before how fun it might be to just have sandwich fixings and just make an event of assembling a big submarine sandwich together…or a taco bar, or making pizzas together. No rule says it has to be about the turkey! Find what makes YOUR family feel thankful…and involved. Get creative about ways to get them around the table with you, rather than scattered into their rooms with their plates and an iPad. To do that, you may have to focus on family more than the food, and that’s really shifting your priorities in a positive way. What does it for your bunch? Singing and music around the piano? Board games? Old photo albums passed back and forth…reminiscent movies on the television…even decorating the Christmas tree together. There is some activity that will be fun that sets a spark of excitement for the years to follow.

Consider splitting the weekend to allow families a chance to linger longer. It’s called Thanksgiving weekend…and yet, we place a mandate on our kids to have to hurriedly eat and run at about 3 or 4 different houses, all on Thursday, to keep from causing hurt feelings. And someone will invariably get pouty…because no one actually shows up hungry when there’s a meal to have to eat every 90 minutes! (Remember the Andy Griffith Show spaghetti episode?) A lot of food gets wasted because families, unlike cows, don’t have two stomachs. Let’s not place unreasonable expectations on our families. It’s really not fair to them, or to us, when we use this holiday to force loyalty to our side of the family. It’s not always possible, but when the holiday can be coordinated to allow a fair amount of time that doesn’t put a damper on things, you be the in-law that makes it easy. I so appreciate my mother-in-law, Thelma Crum, for the way she always did this when she was able to cook. She would do Thanksgiving with our family either on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday afternoon after church, so that her daughters-in-law could spend time with our own parents. I’ll always be grateful for her wisdom in that. People appreciate not having to play the “you love the other side of the family more than you do us” game. Word: a little advance planning can make this time a lot more memorable for all the right reasons. Don’t serve your kids a platter of prove-you-love-me-best…when divorce, marriage, grandkids, and other scenarios change the landscape of your traditions, adjust and you’ll preserve the want-to in your family. I can’t stress this enough–this week is your chance to shine to others as a beacon of being considerate of others’ feelings. If you insist on being the “favorite,” try being the most accommodating and easiest to please. That’ll earn you brownie points like no guilt trip ever could!

If this weekend or Thanksgiving Day is not the very best time, consider scheduling your feast on a non-holiday weekend; even or combining Christmas and Thanksgiving together isn’t even out of the question if it takes the stress and the pressure off everyone involved. When Dana and I wrecked five years ago, we had a combined Thanksgiving/Christmas in early February, an event that was truly marked by the gratitude each of these holidays embodies. If you have a loved one going off to war or fighting a terminal illness, plan the holiday to include him or her and do it sooner rather than later. Look at it this way, you are not anticipating the worst, you are extending your season of thankfulness even longer by spreading out the celebration to capture the most good memories you can.

Create an agreement not to argue! If there are hot-button topics that invariably cause bickering, agree in advance to have those discussions at a later time or not at all. Politics, your son’s eyebrow piercing, and the finer points of church doctrine are probably not good dinner topics. You already know what sets the powder keg off in your house, so man-up or woman-up and choose not to go there. Don’t use the Thanksgiving dinner table as a place to hone your sarcastic one-liners on your family. You don’t look more intelligent than the others when you have a snippy answer…you just look like a jerk! Don’t make them waste their holiday spending it with a jerk! Be nice just this once. It isn’t impossible. Pull your claws in for the sake of your family. If you see a conversation getting a little too toasty, change the subject–or borrow that “par-lay” phrase from Captain Jack Sparrow and call a truce! You’ve got all year to resolve the world’s crises…don’t try to do it today. Enjoy some laughter. (And may I also suggest–refrain from serving alcohol, those of you who normally do on this day. Religious preferences aside, any libation, drug, or substance that causes ANY family member to get violent, moody, temperamental is NOT worth it. Also, if you have some who are recovering substance abusers, don’t wave the bottle in front of them and risk a setback. Make an agreement that no one shows up intoxicated or leaves that way, if for no other reason, the safety and emotional well-being of the children of the household. Please, don’t make this holiday a memory of the parents or older sister getting boozed up and making a scene. )

Finally, please don’t be wasteful. If Thanksgiving means every year you wind up with more leftovers than you can cram into your refrigerator, much of it later raked into the trash can, then it’s time to think outside the box…or in this case, outside the icebox. Don’t cook more than you can eat in a couple days and share. It’s so irresponsible to do so, especially if you’re doing it just to make an impressive display on the table. You already know someone who won’t get enough to eat this week. If inviting that person to your table isn’t safe, practical, or possible, take or send some food to him or her. Double blessing: send some food anonymously! By keeping it low-key, you let God get the glory and you get the joy of being His covert agent of goodwill. Either way, just make sure no one goes hungry on your watch this week, even if all you are able to share is a peanut butter sandwich. This is also a great way to teach your children about the “giving” part of Thanksgiving. Kids love to give things…to allow them to help assemble take-out baggies of sandwiches or leftover pie is sowing some precious values into their young hearts.

I pray all of you will have a truly peaceful, blessed, uncomplicated Thanksgiving holiday this week. May God’s presence be felt in every home, and may you have more than enough. Love, light, and life!

That Your Prayers Be Not Hindered

“Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For,“Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” — 1 Peter 3:1-12

I want to interject early on, that there is a difference between medical conditions which trigger certain behaviors, and spiritual conditions. When someone is (or should be) under medical treatment and/or medications for such conditions, I would never advise you to stop treatment or counseling. In fact, I beg of you to get checked out if you suspect you’re dealing with bipolar, depression, PTSD, or any other mental health issue that might make it easy for you to mistreat others. The difference is, medication can help with a physical/mental condition–there is no shame in needing it–but if your problem is spiritual, you cannot medicate away a spiritual problem! May all of us transparent with ourselves enough to know when sin is the root cause of our bad behavior–and may we aggressively do the work to get it out of our lives.

I also want to note that, this article can’t possibly take into account every single home’s unique issues. I do want to, however, talk about just a few of them. If these don’t touch on the particular problems, causes, and conditions in your own home, just know that I’m trying to touch a small area in a very broad issue. Please, if you’re having problems, don’t just take my small blog post as an all-inclusive approach to dealing with them. Consult with a qualified marriage counselor, pastor, mental health advisor, someone who can get into the finer points of your particular crisis.

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It’s not often that I start a devotional out with such a long passage of Scripture, but to condense this very important passage would not do any justice to the teaching topic I’m addressing this morning: cruelty in the home, most notably, spousal abuse.

There aren’t many instances in Scripture where spousal abuse is recorded; yet, treating one’s family well–including (and especially) the husband or wife–is a recurring theme throughout the Scriptures. It’s important to God. Being kind to one’s mate should be a given, right? Yes, it should be. There are some things God shouldn’t have to come right out and get elementary about, and yet… He had to spell out that we not have sex with animals, with our parents/kids/near kin, etc. If you think that mankind is inherently good, well, think again. The human heart, without God shaping it and molding it, is desperately wicked. When mapping out a plan for godly living, yes, He got very specific. He knew there would be a few delinquents in the bunch who might come back later and say, “Well, no one ever told ME that a person’s not supposed to do that!”

A Double Life

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. James 1:8, 19-20

You cannot be cruel in your home and it not affect your life outside your home. I knew of a man once whom everyone in the general public loved. He was very charismatic, very accommodating to others. He was the “open doors, help little old ladies across the street” kind of guy. He was well respected in the business world and in the political realm; yet there was an elephant in the room. When he went home at night, he left the nice-man suit in his car in the garage, and put on the monster costume. He was a verbal abuser to his entire family, but especially to his wife. It would eventually come out that on occasions he got physical with her, too. She remained with him until her children were grown, reasoning within herself that it was ok, so long as he didn’t physically harm the kids. Then, one day she and his children were well out of harm’s way, and everyone was shocked. They couldn’t figure out what on earth would break up such a happy home. Then, slowly, the stories begin to emerge about what was actually going on in that home. The wife would confide, the kids would confide; eventually, what was such a carefully-guarded secret was all over the place.

If that weren’t a sad enough note to end this little story on, the man didn’t just go back to business-as-usual in his outside life. With no one at home to take his frustrations out on, the monster costume was occasionally worn to work and out in the community under his clothes. His stellar reputation went south, and though he was a man of means, he lost everything of true value. Eventually even his financial prosperity proved to be tainted by the cruelty in his heart.

Abuse Isn’t Always Covert

Flip the situation and I’ll tell you of another. I used to know a married couple that I absolutely hated running into. They were friends of ours, and I didn’t dislike them, per se. I was just always left deeply uncomfortable by the way the wife continually, and in every conversation, insulted her husband to us…right in front of him! She would go on and on about foolish choices he made, and how if he’d only have listened to her, he wouldn’t have done them…or how he always did this wrong, or always failed in that area. Her whole discussion would always seem to center on how superior she was to him in every way. I could tell this man was resentful and deeply ashamed of what she was doing, and yet, the climate never seemed to change. They had a rocky, on-again, off-again relationship. It always felt good whenever we were able to finagle ourselves away from them! Was that spousal abuse? It absolutely was!

No Place for Abuse in a Christian Home!

Why am I sharing this in a devotional? Because I see it, shamefully so, in Christian homes and not just in the homes of nonbelievers. And yes, those stories abound as well of women who are abusers in the home. Their outcomes are no better than this man’s. And this situation I’ve shared with you is a secular story. You’re seeing ones like it on the news nearly daily now. There are countless big-time athletes and actors and celebrities who’ve lost their status because their abusive characters outside the workplace cause their employers to view them as a public relations risk. No one wants to be associated with a bully or a thug, or even a jerk! Even some of the best-looking actors in Hollywood have completely lost their heartthrob status when it came out that they were abusers of their spouses and families.

I wonder–knowing what an outspoken man Peter was–how and when he eventually came to the place in his walk with God where these teachings had lodged within his own heart! Peter–the same man who wrote the above passage is the same hot-head who cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s the same fellow who denied Jesus three times, and other major debacles of character. Yet, he apparently at least eventually got the revelation that God values self-control in a man (and a woman). Jesus even showed up at his house at one point to heal Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, and she rose up afterwards and ministered to them. A man who has relationship issues wouldn’t call Jesus to his home to heal one of his in-laws! He’d probably do anything that he could to keep Jesus from entering his home, for fear that Jesus would sense a spirit of offense there. Peter’s writings here would indicate that, at least in time, he understood the necessity of one’s horizontal relationships’ being in harmony to positively open up the VERTICAL relationship with God.

I’m not writing this devotional to try to shame men into becoming walked-on wimps, and I’m not writing it to tell women that they have no voice and should just be door mats to their husbands. I’m writing it to urge you to get your houses in order…because how you treat your family matters to God. You will be judged for it. The fruitfulness of your hopes, dreams, and prayers depends on it, too. If you don’t particularly like being successful, being thought well of, being blessed, being whole in mind and body, then just ignore everything I’ve said…BUT! If you do want to have a blessed, prosperous life where everything doesn’t go to pieces, then you need to respect the conditions for blessing that God has set forth in His Word.

Common Excuses We Use Not to Change

It’s just the way I am. I inherited this temper. So lame! This is the laziest excuse to let one’s emotions run the show. You are right about one thing…without God’s help, you really can’t change. And if you inherited a short fuse, stop bragging about it! It’s not something to be proud of. If you have anger issues or a personality trait that is endangering the welfare of your family, be man or woman enough to admit it before God and before a qualified marriage counselor. Don’t wait until the damage is beyond repair. You may not feel that bad about it now, but at some point in time, you will reap some painful things for the pain you inflict on others.
It’s his/her fault that I lose it. My spouse sets me off with that mouth! While it’s true, our spouses can lend to the overall problem, it is still up to you to control your own spirit! Temporarily distance yourself if you have to, rather than engaging so heatedly into discussions that you wind up saying and doing regretful things. Back off. Take a walk. Better yet, pray and get into God’s Word. Take the initiative to arrange for pastoral and qualified family counseling if you have these types of issues. Whatever you do, don’t let that volcano of hate and anger spew into your home!
He/she knows I really don’t mean it. We always cool off eventually. I can promise you this: when you say hurtful things to your children or spouse, they play over and over like a broken record long after the argument is over. Don’t be the cause of your family having to deal with the sin of unforgiveness through repeated abuse on your part! Nothing good can come of you causing your spouse and kids to develop hard, callous hearts. It will tell on you, eventually.
As long as no one at work, church, school, or our community knows we have these problems, it should all work out ok. You see, that’s the lie Satan plants to keep us satisfied that we still have it all under control. Remember, God’s opinion ultimately is the most important, and if you are disobeying His guidelines for the way you treat others, you are sinning, PERIOD. Just because no one else seems to be observing the problem, doesn’t mean that they aren’t already picking up on the bad vibes. People aren’t that stupid, friend! Your spouse and children have body language and many other non-verbal means of communicating to the world that you are not treating them well, even when they are trying to hide their embarrassing secret.
I came from an abusive background and I didn’t turn out so bad. I’m not nearly as bad as my dad/mom. Are you kidding? The very fact that your own family is repeating the same nightmare in another generation is a serious problem. What if your children’s relationships turn out to be even worse than your parents’, just because you failed to deal with it in your own life? Yes, it’s serious. Don’t grade yourself on a curve against others who you perceive are/were worse than you are. Examine your life against God’s standard in His Word, and make whatever changes you need to make to live a life pleasing to Him! Proverbs says that when a person’s ways please the the Lord, He makes even that person’s enemies to be at peace with him/her. Righteousness and a truly right heart will positively, even miraculously, affect your ability to get along well with others. It is truth.
I don’t feel well. My health issues make me moody and my family knows it. Yes, they certainly do know it, and they resent being the brunt of your frustration. And if you want their prayers, love, understanding, and support, you will try harder not to let your personal pain affect your treatment of them. The best way to have someone actually on your side is not to turn him or her into an enemy by being an ogre!
I’m just talking mean to him/her. Since I’m not name-calling or using foul language, it’s not really verbal/emotional abuse. Baloney, friend. You are not that deceived! If the way you are speaking and behaving is causing abnormal fears, manipulation, torment, sadness, depression, suicidal thoughts, resentment, self-hatred, depreciation, insults, you are not behaving like Jesus! Yes, sometimes we have to address issues in our homes. Things need discussed, resolved, debated, corrected, at times changed for the better of everyone involved. Sometimes we must be iron sharpening iron…you may be instrumental in discipline in your home, but you are not called to be a verbal axe-wielder in your home. You can have even serious, somber, firm discussions with others without stepping into a spirit of strife. Weigh every action and word against how Jesus would handle what you’re handling, and if you are emotionally scarring another person, you need to stop it, NOW.

Initiating Change Through Prayer and Honest Self-Examination

There’s no way I can possibly cram all the helpful elements to enhancing our spousal relationships into this little blog post, but what I will do is this: I have included a couple of prayers for spouses whose anger issues are jeopardizing their marriages. I am proposing not anger management, but anger crucifixion! It’s time to take these issues to the cross, once and for all.

I do want to say this, as we end on a positive note: today is a new day. We can repent and apologize for the sins of our past, and start from this day forward to make better choices. I so respect Larry and Tiz Huch, television ministers, for their very transparent testimony of how God restored their marriage after years of abusive behavior. We need to see more testimonies like theirs of couples who’ve overcome the past, forgiven, and gone on to have happy marriages. I want you to know that there is hope for you too–but you must be willing to fight the real enemy, the devil, for it! God is ready to meet you right where you are, and His grace is sufficient.

Husbands – “Heavenly Father, I feel the pressure on every side to be in charge. The hardest time I have holding it together is when I come home, because that’s where I want most to be able to be myself. But Lord, I don’t like the man I see myself become when I’m around my family. Forgive me for the horrible way I have let my anger leech into my homelife. As the spiritual leader of our home, it says that I have spiritual issues of my own which need dealt with. Lord, I don’t want to damage my children for future relationships! I don’t want my wife to secretly despise me. The truth is, I don’t know how to change and without Your help, I can’t change. I ask You, in Jesus’ name, to break off any generational curses of parental and spousal abuse from my bloodline now. Sever all negative ties between my family history and my own immediate family now. If there is abuse in our lineage, let my family be the generation in which it is stopped. Lord, shine the light of Your Word into my spirit man. Chase the wickedness out of the corners of my soul where it loves to hide. Father, if there is an indwelling of any unclean spirit in me or on me which influences me to verbally, emotionally, or physically abuse my wife and children, I resist it now. I submit myself to You because Your Word says that if I will humble myself, submit to you, and resist the devil, he MUST flee from me! Drive out every evil spirit that influences me to harm others and to harm myself. Fill me up to overflowing with Your Holy Spirit and help me to recognize all open doors to evil in my life. I go behind Your revelation of these things and I shut them, one by one. In Jesus’ name, may every legal access the devil has to our home be deadbolted shut now and forevermore. Father, as I repent and submit myself to Your Word, I will also repent to and before my family for the wrong things I have said and done to them. Your Word says that anger rests in the bosom of fools. I don’t want to be a fool. I want to love my family the way You do, and to protect my spouse the way Christ shields and covers His Church. If I cannot see substantial changes coming, I will be man enough to initiate marital counseling. I will not hide our problems behind the guise of a Christian home, but I will get help and I will stop the abuse from perpetuating to another generation. Help me to love like You love. Thank You for forgiving me and extending Your grace and mercy over our situation now.”

Wives – “Heavenly Father, You have heard my silent cries for help, and I know that it is not Your plan for my family to be harboring this ugly secret. Verbal and physical abuse are not attributes of the Spirit-filled! These ugly manifestations have no place in our home. I look to You for wisdom to be able to be the thermostat of our home. While it is not right for my husband to abuse me, I know that I need to recognize “triggers” that provoke outbursts. I can’t always prevent bad moods and temper flares from occurring, but You can enable me to divert certain situations before they even occur. Lord, forgive me for times when I nag or boss or belittle my husband. Forgive me for sometimes not resisting the urge to push his buttons by inserting a little dig or subtle insult into discussions. While it is wrong for him to mistreat me, it is equally wrong for me to dare him to do so. I will set a watch upon the words of my mouth. I will learn to give soft answers that turn away wrath, and I will set in motion a spiritual mood change in our home through praise and worship, thanksgiving, prayer, reading and speaking Your Word aloud, and through the cleansing of evil spirits from my household in intercession! Help me to proactive in this area. Help me to build up my husband’s spirit man and not to tear him down. I repent of every time I have emasculated him through open insults, rebellion, and belittling him in front of others–especially our children. Help me to have new-found respect for him, and help me to forgive. Oh, Lord, how I need Your help there! Cause my moods to come into harmony in ways that affect his moods more positively. Your Word says that my lifestyle has the power to win him over to You just by the witness I live before him! No amount of preachiness or nagging could ever influence him like seeing Your love pour out of me. Help me to identify characteristics in my personality which might cause arguments (complaining, griping, negative words, insults, sarcasm, bossiness), and to put these things on the altar for good! Make me that kind of woman, Father, so full of Your Holy Spirit that he cannot resist the pull toward You. I will apologize to him for my shortcomings, and I will take the high road to reconcile whenever we have disagreements. I will not assume that he can read my mind! If I have concerns, I will speak gently to him about them and allow Your Holy Spirit to convict him in those areas. Lord, I ask You in Jesus’ name to break generational curses that come into our family from my side of the bloodline. Whether emotional disorders, addictions, abuse or being enslaved by those who abuse, or any other trap of Satan to perpetuate damage into our children, I stop it now by submitting our heritage to You! Doors that You have made me responsible to shut, I will close. I will set no wicked thing before my eyes, and I will not entertain the foolish advice of a broken world on how to conduct my household affairs! I look to You, O God, and I pray that, should our marriage require counseling, that You will pair my husband and me with the right counselor(s) who can help us to heal and move forward. And please, if remaining in our home is endangering the safety and well-being of myself and our children–if You see that my spouse is unwilling to be helped and will go on harming us–give me the discernment and courage to know when and where to flee for protection. In Jesus’ name I ask, Amen!”

Thankfulness–Breaker of Hope Deferred

Proverbs 13:12 tells us that postponed hope sickens the heart. How many people are suffering in their health–or even already gone to the grave–because of a state of hopelessness?

I want each of you to ponder this and begin to confess, “I choose to be happy NOW. Not later, when the right job, the right mate, the weight loss, the respect and the education and the money come. My contingency for happiness isn’t bound up in a lottery ticket mentality, where happiness might get to happen later IF per next-to-nothing chance, I get everything I hope for.”

One of Satan’s cruelest schemes is that of deferred hope, because it’s always in the future with no acquisition date stamped on it. In that setting, only fantasy occupies the mind–for anyone else’s life MUST be more interesting than one’s own, right?

Don’t let the evil one convince you that the ideal life is the one you aren’t in! He will keep you running from one relationship to another, one high to another, one futile pursuit and then another and another. You’ll live inside a fictitious story where you spend all your days, as Ecclesiastes says, chasing “vanities.” Even when you ARE running over with favor and blessing, you won’t see it because you’ll be still focused on what you don’t have yet. Without meaning to be–and without seeing it–you’ll become miserably self-centered, trapped inside the devil’s funhouse where every reflection of your life is distorted and perverted. Not good enough.

How on earth does one stop deferring hope? It is, after all, a choice! You break the cycle first by taking on the spirit of thanksgiving. As hypocritical as that might sound, you call the devil’s bluff even before you SEE your own life as a great place to be. You zero in on even the trivial, tiny things if necessary; and praise God for those instead of lamenting things which aren’t so wonderful at present. Believe me when I tell you, God knows your heart! He isn’t going to be insulted when you do this. He knows the difference between sarcasm and a true attempt to return to a spirit of thanksgiving. If your foot is hurting, thank Him that your ear isn’t.

Jesus lived in a human body too. It would’ve been much easier to live out His days as a normal, nondescript fellow with the biblical equivalent of the American Dream. The wife, kids, the dog, the picket fence. He also knew that the key to not becoming disillusioned with the burdens He bore was to remain in the place of thanksgiving. His prayers began with, “Father, I thank You that_____.”

From what many historians believe, Mary probably long outlived Joseph. As the oldest, the responsibility to support her and to raise younger siblings would have fallen to Jesus. He could’ve wrestled with “hope deferred” as He labored away, day in and day out, to put food on the table instead of being out there fulfilling His destiny. The human side of Him may have wondered, “Am I ever going to get beyond just helping my folks and on to REAL ministry?” But you know, the side of Him which connected to His Father knew that what He was doing in those preparatory days WAS real ministry! He learned compassion and selflessness while helping wipe noses and pack water. Time He spent poring over the law and the prophets, in prayer and meditation, and in the place of solitude, and in the place of serving His family well, were all investments for what would become a 3 1/2 year blitz of ministry that culminated in Him saying, “It is finished!” at the cross–not, “This is unfair, my life has been disappointing, it is UNFINISHED. I want to reinvent myself and be like the characters on my favorite TV show!”

There have been many times when, going through hard seasons, I dreamed of hopping on a plane with a new name and identity, and just starting all over again. There’ve been times when I felt like the biggest waste of potential EVER. I’ve known for some time now that when I catch myself drifting away to that place, my thankfulness is leaking out. I immediately try to switch gears and reassess. Have I listened to the world telling me all I’m not, or am I instead peering at my reflection in the Word to see me conforming to the image of Jesus?

When we say that our current state is not our IDEA of where we want to be, then we are in the place of hope deferred…and yes, it’s just an idea. Shake yourself with this hard but vital truth! If you get every part of your “idea” of what it takes to make you happy, you still won’t be happy unless you are already choosing to have a heart of gratitude in any state. Our mission statement may be more than “half a bubble off plumb” when placed against our actual MISSION. It’s time to take our minds off the “if only I were richer, thinner, younger, older, more educated, beautiful/handsome, then my life would be better” merry-go-round, and make today about what we actually have in our hands. Do as Jesus did concerning feeding the multitude. Ask, “what do I have in my hands?” and then hold it up, give thanks for it, bless it, and put it to use. You’re no more cheated for that allotment of resources you have than Jesus was, when He held up and gave thanks for five dinner rolls and a couple of sardines, right in front of the astonished people He was about to bless with the feast of a lifetime!

Remember–remain thankful even when it feels silly to be thankful for your little bit. It doesn’t matter what YOU have, it’s what HE has…but He will require you to present to Him what you have first. Trade your hope deferred for faith infused! He will bless you more for thankfully using what you have–your ordinary, ho-hum life in your average or below-average body, less-than-perfect teeth, short resume’, incomplete education, not-so-dream job, biological click-ticking self–than if you were to get to swap lives with any other person on earth. Bless and utilize what you have; because in so doing, you short-circuit the endless-loop of the accuser who says you have too little to ever be effective (or happy)! Stop comparing yourself to that other person who already has what you wish you did–you may think you really want IT, but mostly what you’re wanting is to shut off feeling as if you’re a disappointment. Stop it. That other person isn’t having things as perfect as you think…especially if he or she is still motivated by that same need for approval that you’re wrestling.

God will take your offering of what you have, pour the oil of anointing on it, set it ablaze with favor you couldn’t have possibly worked diligently enough to earn, and leave you speechless at what He has done with your tiny part! So, does a spirit of thankfulness REALLY do all that? Is it really the breaker of hope deferred? Yes! On the day you grasp this–take your eyes off yourself and place them upon God–you will poise yourself for the miraculous! Refocus every single day if you have to, because this is one of the most powerful tools of spiritual warfare you will ever pull out of your bag. Get this right and watch your life begin to change in a major way…and those things you don’t see changing will start mattering to you a whole lot less in light of what IS.