NICOLE STEVENSON
We all know that Thanksgiving is a season that calls us to reflect on the things we’re grateful for. For one month even secular culture is abuzz with discussions on the importance of gratitude. Whether it’s keeping a gratitude journal, 30-days of thankfulness posts on social media, or brightly colored hand turkeys listing all the sweet little things children are grateful for, these practices fill our Novembers with tradition and a renewed desire to be thankful in life.
I thank God for the many people He’s rescued from Adventism over the last year. In His perfect time God has opened the eyes of so many to the gospel that saves! He has granted them repentant and believing hearts and brought them into new life! Life Assurance Ministries and the Former Adventist Podcast have received countless emails from brothers and sisters sharing their stories of coming to faith and seeing truth for the first time this year!
Seeing and understanding God’s word for the first time is an exhilarating season of discovery and hope!
As many of you know, when a person is born again, all of life looks different. Seeing and understanding God’s word for the first time is an exhilarating season of discovery and hope! With minds set on eternity, we who once believed we could never know if we were saved now walk in newness of life anticipating a forever with God and His people. Rather than living for salvation, we live from salvation!
Sadly, it doesn’t take long for this new understanding of spiritual reality to confront us with the depth of divide between Adventism and Christianity. Those who have only recently left Seventh-day Adventism for the true gospel may find themselves surprised by a new kind of loneliness this holiday season as they interact with their Adventist families who know they’ve left. To my brothers and sisters who know this struggle, I ask you to remember to pray for our new brothers and sisters who will confront it for the first time in the coming days and months.
Unexpected Grief
One of the hardest things about the earliest days of leaving Adventism is how profoundly we can be misunderstood by our family and loved ones. When we leave Adventism over doctrines to become Christians, we make a statement about Seventh-day Adventism; by deduction, our leaving is usually interpreted as a statement about the validity of the personal faith of those we love. Many who leave are often met with defensiveness rather than curiosity or even concern.
Even as new formers attempt to share in love what they’ve learned, these early conversations with family can be painful and challenging.
Even as new formers attempt to share in love what they’ve learned, these early conversations with family can be painful and challenging. Rather than hearing us, our loved ones may feel as if they’re defending their own belief in God rather than considering the details of the doctrinal issues we are putting before them. Seventh-day Adventism often becomes synonymous with their experience of God in their life, and to reject one can be seen as rejecting the other.
Many of us could never have anticipated the drastic and seemingly unnatural shift in the relationships we had most relied upon. In what seems like an instant our presence at family gatherings may be accompanied by undefinable tension, and sometimes we are covertly marginalized. Our personal expressions of faith can be viewed as suspect, problematic, or even dangerous. When shifts like these occur, they change everything about how we experience the holidays, and along with the “disenfranchised grief” of leaving a cult, we are thrown into the “ambiguous grief” of forever-changed relationships (apart from the work of God).
Grieving With Gratitude
I’ve shared before that in my early years after leaving Adventism, Colleen Tinker taught me to thank God even in grief. She would tell me to thank God for what He was doing that I couldn’t yet see. Learning to do this has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. It has taught me more of who God is than I’ve ever learned in my most peaceful seasons. Thanking God in all things is one of the greatest privileges His children have. It may not seem like a privilege on the surface, but it is a profound one.
We are only able to thank God in our suffering when we know God. In suffering, our prayers are plunged deep below the surface of gratitude for blessings. Our prayer life is taken to a place where everything else seems to disappear as we cry out to God on the basis of what we know is true about Him even in the midst of our pain.
When we purpose to turn our despairing faces to look upon Him in order to thank Him in our suffering, we are purposing to set our gaze in worship upon the One whom we know has the power to remove our pain, and yet has chosen not to. In this posture of worship— when we thank God for who He is and what He’s doing that we don’t understand—He seems to compassionately grant us a deeper understanding of who He is and how He loves us.
When I’m in places of pain, the promises of Scripture come alive as I place the full weight of my hope upon them.
When I set my eyes on Him in my suffering God seems bigger somehow. I can see His grandeur and sovereignty more readily than I seem to in the peaceful seasons of life. Scriptures that reveal God’s character and attributes take on new life and deeper meaning in my heart when I feel my need for Him most profoundly. I’m not sure how it works, but it seems as if I can see Him more truly as He is when who He says He is becomes my only hope in life and circumstances. When I’m in places of pain, the promises of Scripture come alive as I place the full weight of my hope upon them.
Even when I feel afraid and when my circumstances elicit deep pain, as His daughter, I have the privilege both to lament to my Father who cares about my pain, and to thank Him for what He is doing in the middle of it. When I thank God in my grief I am offering a sacrifice of praise as I’m remembering that just as God gives meaning and purpose to all of life, I am called to give Him praise in all of life.
Commanded to Give Thanks
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4:2).
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:15-16).
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’’ (Hebrews 12:28-29).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
Scripture is replete with commands for the church to be thankful to God in all situations and at all times. We are told over and again that the trials we face are purposed for our good and for God’s glory. Our loving Father who walks us up to, into, and out of every one of the fires we walk through does not turn His face away from His suffering children. Psalm 34:18 tells us that “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Romans 8:29 tells us that those who God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed into the image of His Son. Scripture makes abundantly clear that we are transformed into the image of Christ as we behold Him and as we faithfully endure suffering (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 5:3-5; Ja. 1:3; 2 Pt. 1:3-11).
This is why we’re commanded to give thanks in all circumstances, because even our suffering is preparing us for eternal glory, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4:16-18).
When we grieve with gratitude we are living out our hope in Jesus and proclaiming to a lost world that there is so much more than what we can see around us.
When we thank God in our suffering, we are giving evidence to the fact that we are looking to things that are unseen and eternal as we wait on the Lord. Our gratitude in grieving is a reflection of our salvation, it is the space where we find ourselves being sanctified. I recently heard a brother in the Lord describe sanctification as the closing of the gap between what we profess to believe and how we live. When we grieve with gratitude we are living out our hope in Jesus and proclaiming to a lost world that there is so much more than what we can see around us.
Designed to Thrive in Thankfulness
God created us to thrive as grateful creatures who worship Him. We were designed to know peace through gratitude to Him. In God’s common grace, all humanity can benefit from being grateful even in their unbelief. Even so, as image bearers, we know truest peace when our gratitude is expressed in worship to God.
Recent research related to the neuroscience of gratitude has provided fascinating evidence that supports the Bible’s teachings related to thankfulness offering us peace (Phil 4:6-7), healing (Prov. 3:5-8, Psalm 103:1-4), and endurance even in trial (James 1:2-4).
“Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are brain-based, including anxiety and gratitude. Both of these states are tied to activity in the brain such as the production and functioning of neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin and hormones like cortisol. Even when our anxiety is triggered by situations or people, it’s the neural activity that causes our reaction. Anxiety, fear, worry, and the brain gang up on us and train us to be on the lookout for the negative and for problems. We find them. We react to them anxiously because our brain is conditioned that way. It’s not intentional but, rather, is a habit that formed without us being aware until anxiety symptoms became prominent and bothersome.
Gratitude works in a similar, but opposite, fashion. Studies have shown that gratitude reduces anxiety (depression, too) in part by optimizing the functioning of the autonomic nervous system as well as those same neurotransmitters involved in anxiety.
The brain can’t respond to anxiety and gratitude at the same time, which means it’s one or the other. We can feel anxious and other negative states, or we can feel grateful and all of the positive emotions that are associated with it. We certainly do not choose to be anxious, but we can learn to control, and thus choose, our responses to what’s happening in our lives.”
Consider again what Paul said in Philippians chapter 4:6-9,
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
According to Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, B.A., gratitude not only impacts our psychological health, it even impacts our biological health. According to Chowdhury’s research, gratitude builds emotional resilience and perseverance in trial, releases toxic emotions, reduces pain, improves sleep quality, aids in stress regulation, reduces anxiety and depression, and aids in the grieving process. In her article, Chowdhury also cited a study that showed older men and women had a higher level of gratitude toward God which resulted in them being healthier and living a more stress-resilient life.
Neuroscientists have discovered evidence tied directly to the commands of God! In His mercy and goodness God has commanded us to do something He hardwired in us for our good. He physiologically tied the benefits of gratitude to our wellbeing and resilience. This is both common grace for all humanity, and it’s particular grace for those who focus that gratitude upon God and discover more of who He is no matter their circumstances.
Prayers for Grateful Perseverance
To my new brothers and sisters in the Lord, I don’t know what you’ll be walking into this Thanksgiving; I pray it’s peaceful and that the Lord will use you to bring the life and light of Jesus into your family gatherings. I pray that they’ll receive you, and the message of hope you bring, with full acceptance and joy.
I also pray that if they don’t, and if you find yourself at the beginning of a longer road than you expected, that you will not grow weary and that you’ll learn more of who God is as you gratefully wait on Him and trust Him with your future and theirs.
In our grief we can remember with gratitude that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ as we experience what it is to suffer with Him “outside the camp”.
The grief of the ambiguous loss and change in relationships after leaving Adventism may linger, but we who know this grief also know the comfort of God as we look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who ran His race— despising the shame of the cross—with His eyes fixed on the joy set before Him (2 Cor. 1:3-5; Heb 12:1,2). In our grief we can remember with gratitude that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ as we experience what it is to suffer with Him “outside the camp”.
“So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” (Hebrews 13:12-15).
To my brothers and sisters in the Lord who’ve been on this road for a long season already, should you gather with loved ones who still may not know the freedom of the gospel, remember always to “…be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain,” because, God’s word does not return to Him empty but does what He sends it out to do (1 Cor. 15:58; Isaiah 55:10,11).
I pray this Thanksgiving we all remember that no matter the road we’re walking we were designed and commanded to give praise to God with thankful hearts in every season and at all times. As we live out our designed purpose to glorify God in all circumstances, growing in our knowledge of Him, we will know true satisfaction and peace. †
ENDNOTES
- Peterson, T. (2019, November 14). Gratitude and Anxiety: To Be Less Anxious, Be More Grateful , HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2023, November 11 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2019/11/gratitude-and-anxiety-to-be-less-anxious-be-more-grateful
- Chowdhury, Madhuleena Roy BA “The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain”.
- Krause, N. (2006). “Gratitude Toward God, Stress, and Health in Late Life”, Research on Aging, 28(2), 163-183. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027505284048).
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Wonderful article amazing insite. It gives great meaning and depth to our salvation in Christ and the love and gratitude He has for us and we have for Him because of what He has done for us.
Love the way you think.
Gary Clayton