Doctrine of the Day: Giving thanks for Surgery

What are you thankful for? Do you really understand what it means to be thankful? Are you sure? It is easy to say that until life collides with Ephesians 5:20…

Right now I am sitting in pre-op with Meredith waiting for the doctors to take her back into surgery… and I am trying to be thankful because Ephesians 5:20 says I should, “Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Notice that little bitty preposition that most of us take for granted: “for.” We are not supposed to merely be thankful IN all things (as in 1 Thessalonians 5:18), but we are to take that huge step forward in Christian maturity and be thankful FOR everything.

This is the same type of principle as “love your enemies.” In Matthew 5 Jesus says that even those who are not in Christ will love people who are loving to them first, but He says that his followers are to love even their enemies.

The point is that we are supposed to go beyond what is easy and expected of all people to do that which is difficult and expected by God of his children. This forces us to rely on Christ and not our own strength. Anyone can love the lovable. But it is only in Christ that we will love the unlovable.

The same is true with thankfulness. Anyone can be thankful for homes, families, jobs, and food. But only those who are in Christ can be thankful for homelessness, loss of a family member, unemployment, and hunger.

“Why should we be thankful for those things?” you ask. That is a great question. Here is hopefully a sufficient answer. It includes a few biblical principles of thankfulness.

1. Biblical thanksgiving is relational. That means that our gratitude is meant to be directed to a person. It is not merely a general feeling or expression of gratitude. Tomorrow people all over the US will say, “I am thankful for ______.” They are not thankful TO anyone. They are just happy that they have ________.

God commands us to recognize Him as the source of every blessing we have (James 1:17). It is not sufficient for a Christian ever say, “I am thankful for ______.” We are commanded to direct our thanks to the source of our joy… God. IF we are happy or thankful in anything we have, it is because God is good and has given us every blessing we have. So, we should ALWAYS direct our thanks to HIM and say, “I thank God for _______.”

2.Thanksgiving = Emotion + Expression. It is very easy to allow ourselves to think that thanksgiving is one or the other, but it is not biblical thanksgiving unless both are present.

For example, emotion without expression never explicitly honors the one to whom you are thankful. I may receive great joy from Meredith when she cooks me a red velvet cake. I may eat 3 pieces, make all sorts of approving noises (“Mmmm… Ohhhh yeah”), I may even say that it’s the best cake I have ever had, but if I never express my thanks to HER then she has not been honored. Similarly, when we love God’s gifts and enjoy health, monetary blessing, and family but never tell Him that we recognize Him as the Giver and our joy is toward Him, then we dishonor him.

Conversely, expression of thanks without the emotion of thanks leads to dry formalism. All of you with children know exactly what I am talking about. You can tell a child to say “Thank you” to grandma when she gives him a birthday gift, but when the gift is not what he expected, his “Thank you” falls flat because it is obvious that his is not truly grateful for his black socks when he had his heart set on an iPod.

True thanksgiving must be heartfelt and expressed explicitly.

3. Our level of true thankfulness depends on how much we value the giver… not the gift. In my previous point the little boy who is ungrateful for black socks, the real issue in his heart is not what he thinks about the socks, it is what he feels for his Grandma.

When I get more excited over a new computer than I do a new suit from Meredith, I am telling her that I love her more when she gives me something extravagant than I do when she gives me something mundane.

Why do I not go nuts over the suit but I do over the computer? Because I love the computer more than I love the suit. So how does that make Meredith feel? I can try to muster up some gratitude for the suit, but she can tell that I don’t really appreciate the suit.

The real gratitude that we are to express is supposed to be over the act of giving, not the specific nature of the gift.

4. Ephesians 5:20 tells us to be thankful FOR everything because we are supposed to believe that God does everything for our good and his glory. We should be thankful for every gift that God gives us. Every trial, every suffering He gives us is part of his plan to conform us to Christ. We should be thankful that He loves us to much to allow us to stay in our present state. He wants us to access more of Christ in our lives for his glory. I know it’s cliché but… no pain, no gain.

So, back to my situation. I now sitting in the surgery waiting room waiting for them to let me know how it all turned out. The question I am asking myself based on Ephesians 5:20 is, “Am I thankful to God for Meredith’s surgery?”

I want to be. LORD, thank you for your grace in Christ. Please help me to be thankful for all your work in my life. I know that you are working all things for my good. Give me the wisdom to accept your gifts with gratitude. Transform my cold heart into a blazing furnace, burning hot for your glory.

Thank you in advance for your work in my heart. Thank you for Meredith’s surgery. You have taught me that my hope and peace is in you and your providence.