the only prayer you ever have to pray
Hey folks.
Want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.
I'm taking some time off to be with my family this week.
And I realized that over the last year or so, quite a few new folks have signed up for this email, and the vast majority of you haven’t seen the emails from when I first started sending them.
So here is my first ever "refresh" email.
It feels more true than ever this season. We need gratitude more than ever.
Cheers.
Jon.
"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."
Meister Eckhart
It’s amazing how quickly gratitude can be sucked out of our hearts by the rhythm of modern life. This week, we will celebrate Thanksgiving, a moment where at least symbolically we paused to remember the gifts and grace we have received. But almost immediately after the prayer and turkey leave our lips, Black Friday and Cyber Monday overshadowed them. Though the days of wrestling with people for a cheap TV at Walmart seem to be over, we still have to wrestle with the spirits of entitlement and mammon that seek to make their way into our hearts. These idols rarely make a direct assault anymore; they are more subtle, more sophisticated, more aesthetically pleasing. James K.A. Smith notes, "Our idolatries are less like conscious decisions to believe a falsehood and more like learned dispositions to hope in what will disappoint."
We have to fight to maintain gratitude through this season. Everything in life, from curated ads, requests from our kids, a desire to be generous to our wives, obligations to in-laws and pressure to keep up with other dads will come for our hearts. They will seek to overshadow the wonder of what we truly have in Christ. Though the desire to be generous is a godly one, we must not equate trinkets with virtue or consumerism with contentment. One day of toys a year won’t build a family culture, but gratitude in an entire season can. That is what you need to fight for this week. Paul reminded Timothy, "But godliness with contentment is great gain." Great gain comes from great gratitude.
So how can we cultivate a gratitude strong enough to resist over-consumption?
ADJUSTING TO THE PACE OF GRATITUDE
In the modern world, we live at a violent pace.
There is no margin between moments to make sense of what is happening in our stories. Only accidents, sickness, setbacks or strain seem to shake us from our frenetic pace. We lose the rhythm of grace when we live at a violent pace. We lose the ability to appreciate, savor, reflect, linger, enjoy.
God sometimes manifests himself in dramatic ways, but he normally works in ways too ordinary for us to see. There was no room in the inn for the son of God’s birth. No recognition that God was working in the neighborhood doing construction for over 30 years. It was too ordinary, too impossible to believe that God is found in the everyday. So we must learn to slow down enough to see. Frederick Buechner reminds us to: "Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."
The ping off the bat as your son hits his first ball in a game. That is grace.
Laughter from your wife in the other room as she does homework with the kids. That is grace.
Your favorite song from college hitting the playlist as the sun sets and you pull in the driveway. That is grace.
Kindness from a coworker where there has been strain on the job. That is grace.
Winter light over morning coffee. That is grace.
Creation, providence, redemption. Our lives are drenched in grace!
G. K. Chesterton once wrote, "You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
Grace to see how much we have.
Grace to resist what we do not need.
Grace to love and serve.
Grace to slow down and reflect.
Grace to give ourselves away.
May you cultivate a gratitude that overshadows the cheapening of the sacred this season. May you revel in a grace you cannot buy or earn. May the only prayer that truly matters rise from your lips at last, "God, source of it all, thank you."
Peace.
Jon.
