TOGETHER WE ARE GRATEFUL
(This is a 4-minute read)
When people find themselves in the company of like-minded people, they let down all artificial guards that keep them from sharing openly with one another. At BeInReach’s first Thanksgiving Celebration, people spoke with vulnerability without any superficial veneers of propriety to recount God’s goodness and love in their lives. Stories flowed from hearts to the homes of everyone online. Even the few who did not have the chance to share had mental or written scripts ready.
This is what gratitude does: it unlocks the fullness of life in our hearts. To quote Melody Beattie, gratitude “turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal to a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
For believers, our gratitude is possible because of what God has given us in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This is not a clever plug we use to get people to go to church but a description of God’s gift to all of mankind. Some of us have the gift in hand and are discovering all that it holds for us. Others remain curious about it. Yet, there are some who are skeptical about this free and ready-made gift and how it fits in a world that prizes the spirit of self-reliance and puts down dependency on God as a sign of weakness.
To be sure, God’s gift is, first and foremost, a gift of a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. It is a relationship that comes with the bestowment of the following gifts:
The Gift of His Love
Unlike human love that can be flaky and undependable, God’s love is secure in Himself. It is unconditional in that it’s accessible to us regardless of our state of mind or our hearts when we approach Him, and it cannot be earned by human performance or moral goodness. Top this up with His magnanimity in that He does not keep petty scores but pours out His forgiveness to wipe out sins in our lives. God is faithful even when we fail to keep up our end of the relationship. At the same time, He is not interested in superficial rituals on Sundays where people get re-acquainted with Him, week in and week out, without seriously going deeper in their experience of His love.
The Gift of His Salvation
God’s salvation is a full-on standalone miracle that was made possible through Jesus Christ. We often see images of the crucified Christ languishing on the Cross and we forget that He was never held on the Cross by seven-inch nails that bore through His hands and feet but by His love for us. He gave us more than an arm and a leg to deliver us from being doomed to eternal spiritual death and living in spiritual darkness. The pain and agony of crucifixion made a way for mankind to be reunited with God by a simple heartfelt acknowledgment of our need for Him through Jesus Christ.
Many who have lived in spiritual darkness have learned to depend on their own ability to tackle life’s challenges and on their resolution to overcome them. But they also bear permanent wounds that do not heal on their own. God’s salvation, on the other hand, is reparative, restorative, and life-changing. Contrary to common perception, God’s salvation does not encroach on human agency but instead, it echoes the human desire to be loved unconditionally and live meaningfully. Only God can fulfill that in Jesus Christ, and only salvation delivers that through Jesus Christ.
The Gift of Life through Jesus Christ
The eternal life that God promises is not all about longevity but about living a life that has hope and a future with Him (Jeremiah 29:11). Sure, anyone can find short-term hope based on their own abilities, aspirations and ambitions, but it will never satisfy them. To be sure, the gift of life through Christ is also not about whether we see the glass as half-empty or half-full but about what’s in the glass that’s in our hands. That was what Jesus told a woman who was drawing water from a well in Samaria, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14).
Let’s close Thanksgiving with this reflection:
To believers: Where would you be today if you have not met the richness of God’s love at every point of need in your life?
To others: If you’re the one who’s reading this and still holding out on the life that Jesus offers, what is holding you back that is more certain than the love, salvation, and life that God has promised all humanity?
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR session held on 27 November 2021.
