Giving Thanks Opens Hearts, Minds and Doors (episode 40)

0:00 Today, on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast, you will receive gifts that come to you as you learn to give thanks. Gifts for you are coming today. If you love a prodigal, which you likely might if you're listening to this podcast, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal, and also help and hope on your life journey as well. As you listen today, and I'm so glad that you're here, I'm going to encourage you to ask God to show you which of the gifts that I'm going to mention are the ones that you need, maybe just one, and you can say, yes, I want that gift.

0:55 Write about it, write it down, and then write to me and tell me what gift you felt God had for you and even how that's going and how he's used it in your life. Our prodigal's grandfather was dying. Our son is adopted, and this is his birth grandfather. Noah was the most important man in Josh's life. He was the one who was there in his early years before we adopted him. He taught him to fish, to handle a boat, to love the ocean. He took him to karate and to baseball.

1:36 He just did everything with him. But then when the county had taken him from his mother and was looking for a home for him, the grandparents said, we're already raising his half-sister. We just are too old and too tired to take him. And so he ended up with us. But Papa never left his life. He was always there, very involved with him in the years that followed. And then Josh had a lot of ups and downs, hard times, bad times, and better times. And he was in a better place in his life when Papa became quite ill and was growing weaker and weaker.

2:25 Josh took off from his job to be with him. He wept and wept. He took long walks on the beach, pouring out his pain and his anger to God. He told me, I know I need to give thanks even in this, but I'm having a hard time saying thank you to God. Giving thanks had been an emphasis in our family, and he'd finally begun to make it his. But Josh was so devastated at his grandfather's decline. And then we were sure that he was so out of control over it that when Papa died, that there was a good chance Josh would take his own life.

3:12 But when it happened, this is what Josh did. He helped the man from the funeral home, Carrie, get his grandfather out to the van where they would take him to prepare him. Then he cleaned up all the area where his grandfather had been for weeks. And he planned the funeral with his grandmother. At the funeral, he got up and he shared what his papa had meant to him. He said he wanted to become a good man like his grandfather. He wanted to make him proud. And he thanked God at the memorial service.

3:52 And then again at our Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks later, he thanked God for what a wonderful grandfather he had had. And even though I missed him, it never entered his mind that he was going to take his life, having lost the most important person in his life. Giving thanks has been one of the most transforming practices I have learned in my life. And in our long, prodigal wilderness, it was a significant teacher to me. I learned about giving thanks. And now it's almost Thanksgiving, at least in our country, in the U.S.

4:36 For many of us, Thanksgiving is a hard time, especially in the past couple of years. We might not have lost a loved one, but most of us know someone who has. There are always family tensions, hurtful memories, loneliness, all of that when you come together, especially as you have more adults or young adults. It can be a really challenging time to enjoy your holidays together. But having a prodigal in the family or in the home can be especially difficult. All this can make it really hard, almost impossible, to be thankful.

5:22 And so you do Thanksgiving, and you're not thankful. But it is exactly what we need to do. We need to give thanks. Again, one of the most important, helpful, life-changing truths that I have learned. God is so clear in Scripture. Two verses I can mention, though there are others, says in Philippians 4, we are to pray about everything with thanksgiving. I think usually when we pray about everything in our lives, we're just praying what we wish God would do.

6:03 And He's saying we need to do it with thanksgiving. And then this is Paul speaking again in 1 Thessalonians 5. He says, in all things, give thanks. Why would God say that? Everything? All things? How is that possible? He says it because He knows that giving thanks is the fastest way to bring needed change to us. The growth that we need, the attitudes that need to be better, all of that. Giving thanks is the key. So let me tell you about these gifts that giving thanks will give to you.

6:47 First, when we say thank you, Lord, almost immediately our focus changes. Instead of centering on the pain caused by my unwelcome circumstances, especially by a prodigal who's making some bad decisions, instead of focusing on that, I center on God. I focus on Him. I invite Him to give me His perspective on this difficult time. Sometimes it's barely perceptible, but it's there. There is a small shift from fear to faith. That just happens almost immediately for me if in a hard time I say thank you, Lord, He just changes my perspective.

7:35 But He goes further. There's more. Another thing that happens when we say thank you, Lord, it's as though we are saying to Him, I believe you are God and I believe you are good. It doesn't feel like it right now, but Your Word assures me it is true. I have known it to be true in the past and I choose to believe it now. The scriptures help us to recall and again believe that God is good. In Jeremiah 32 we get this amazing promise, I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

8:16 I will never stop doing good to them. Did you hear that? God said, I will never stop doing good to them. Bless to you and me, to our prodigal, to the other family members we'll be with. I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. I just love the passion that God has for us and what He wants to do in our lives and how good He is.

8:59 Psalm 34 we read, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him. And then in Psalm 86, you Lord are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. And then in Psalm 100, for the Lord is good and His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. And so when I can say thank you, I'm recognizing that God is good and I can trust Him therefore in what He's doing in my life or the lives of those I love.

9:44 It's a huge thing that changes your perspective. We seem terrible, but God is good and He loves us. And He can do something about this. Even in the painful time, He's working. When we say thank you, Lord, we are also expressing our trust in God and His trustworthiness, even in tough times. That step of faith and obedience in the midst of my fear and pain does a couple of wonderful things. First of all, my mind and my emotions quiet. They settle, maybe even relax.

10:26 And I began to experience peace in the midst of turmoil, hope when there seems to be none. So not only will I understand that God is good and loves me and therefore I can trust Him, saying thank you just brings peace to me and gives me hope for the future and what you're going to do. And in ways that I don't fully understand, saying thank you begins to open doors. It's as if those words said in my hesitant trust give God a key to us, a key to our hearts and our minds.

11:09 And with that key, He begins to unlock doors that have been locked by our pain, our anger, our fear, our resistance. We begin to get glimpses of answers to our prayers, of more steps forward than backward, of new attitudes, and occasionally of outright transformation in the lives of our prodigals, those we love, others that we pray for, and most importantly, in our own lives. God says if you'll say thank you, I'll show you what that can open up for your life, in your attitudes, in your mental health and emotional health, and your peace and joy.

12:00 Josh, our prodigal, really learned to say that. He learned to give thanks. And it's made a huge difference in my life as well. I consider it one of the two most important things in my walk with God is giving thanks. So my encouragement to you for this Thanksgiving season that we are entering is to do that. Give thanks. Oh, yes, at the table you might have a little piece of paper that everyone gets one and it gives a question, what are you thankful for? But I'm talking about more than that. How do we do that? Every day, name or write down at least one thing you are thankful for.

12:48 Can't think of anything? Well, start with your own life and relationship with God. What are you thankful for in the past in your life? Still can't get there? Ask a friend or family member what they're thankful for. That might stimulate an idea for you. Look around your home or your neighborhood for something that brings you joy and for which you're thankful. If you can begin to identify things you're thankful for, then it can become more of a habit, a way of remembering to say thank you, Lord. Try adding one more specific thank you to a list each day.

13:32 But if only one is all you can come up with, you know, God will receive that and he will still begin the work he's going to do in your life because you said thank you. Now, I hope that you've written down something that you think will help you be able to give thanks even when your prodigal makes another bad choice or when things don't go the way you want. Be sure to write and tell me about that because then I can pray for you. Maybe I can send you something that would be helpful and I'll have that to share with others. I won't identify you.

14:13 Just the things that you have learned. Give thanks about everything. Pray about everything with thanksgiving. God says, I have gifts for you. Your life will change. You will like how you're able to live and who you are even better because you have learned to give thanks. It has immediate results, I promise. Even in the hard things, even as Josh struggled to say thank you when his grandfather was dying, but he got there and God gave him not only peace in the midst of it, but he gave him new resolve for his life.

14:57 Giving thanks is one of the most important things we can do. Let me give you a word about the next two weeks on When You Love a Prodigal. This is the first of two episodes on giving thanks. Next week, we'll be talking about cultivating a grateful heart so it even becomes just welling up from inside you. It's not just learning to give thanks, but it's a heart that's grateful. I hope that will bless you. Then the following week, we have an interview that you're going to love.

15:38 We will be talking about with Dina Yohe, who's the author of the book, You're Not Alone, her journey with her prodigal and what she's learned from it and the ministry God's given her. The prodigal, Renee, is the inspiration behind the group to write Love on Her Arms. She's had quite a journey, a lot of very hard things, and a lot of things she and her family have learned as a result of Renee's very difficult journey. You'll learn a lot about that in our interview in two weeks. Next week, Cultivating a Grateful Heart, the week after that, the title of that one is Can You Love the Holidays When You Love a Prodigal?

16:26 I think you'll find out it's possible. God bless you.