Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to pause and recognize how much we have received. Food on the table. The love of family and friends. A church where we can worship and belong. Help that arrived when we needed it.
At Medford Gospel Mission, it also gives us an opportunity to consider what gratitude has to do with restoration. Learning to recognize God’s gifts, receive help from others, and use our own gifts to serve are closely connected. Together, they help us understand how God created us to live.
None of us is truly self-sufficient. Every one of us depends on God, and every one of us needs other people to live a full life.
Someone taught us. Someone encouraged us. Someone worked to provide something we needed. Someone forgave us, prayed for us, or stayed beside us through a difficult season.
We may forget those gifts when life is comfortable. We may find them difficult to recognize when life is painful. Thanksgiving invites us to remember.
Receiving help with humility
It can be uncomfortable to acknowledge our dependence. We want to be capable and responsible, and there is something good in that desire. But responsibility does not mean having no needs or owing nothing to anyone.
God created us for relationship. We depend on Him for life itself, and He often cares for us through the work, generosity, and faithfulness of other people.
Recognizing this changes how we see the men and women who come to the Mission. Their circumstances may make their need for help more visible, but needing help is something we share with them.
This matters because mercy can become distant when we divide the world into people who have something to offer and people who only have needs. A healthier understanding begins with humility: we have all received, and we all have responsibilities toward others.
There are seasons when a person needs substantial care before being able to take on much responsibility. Receiving that care does not diminish the person’s dignity. Their worth rests in being made in God’s image, not in how much they can accomplish.
Grace gives gratitude its foundation
Christian gratitude begins with what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Our deepest need is reconciliation with God. Sin has broken our fellowship with Him and affected every part of our lives. We cannot repair that relationship by becoming more useful, more generous, or more thankful.
Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Through His death and resurrection, those who trust in Him receive forgiveness and new life. Salvation is God’s gift, received by faith.
That gives gratitude a firm foundation. We serve because God has shown us mercy. We obey because we belong to Christ. We love because He first loved us.
As I shared in our November newsletter: “Gratitude is not payment for grace. It is the life that grows from having already received it.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 holds these truths together. We are saved by grace through faith, apart from works, and we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. Our service grows from the salvation God gives.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ~Ephesians 2:8–10~
The psalmist asks, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” (Psalm 116:12). His response includes calling on the Lord and offering thanksgiving. Even as he responds to God’s generosity, he continues to depend on God.
We never graduate from needing grace.
Belonging gives us opportunities to serve
At the Mission, our Relational Restoration Process focuses on the Four Key Relationships: our relationship with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. *
Gratitude touches each one.
It directs our attention to God as the giver of every good gift. It helps us understand ourselves as people who have both needs and gifts. It helps us recognize the people around us and the care we have received through them. It also encourages us to use our time, abilities, and resources responsibly in God’s world.
We see these relationships come together as men and women build connections with local churches. A conversation becomes a friendship. A person who has felt alone begins to be known. Encouragement helps someone take another difficult step.
Over time, belonging creates opportunities to give. As these relationships grow, church members and participants encourage one another, learn from one another, and serve alongside one another.
These may seem like small things. But being able to say, “I have something to offer,” can be a meaningful part of restoration.
The local church is central to this life together. It is where Christians gather for worship, hear God’s Word, receive care, and learn to love and serve one another. As a para-church ministry, the Mission serves alongside churches and helps men and women become rooted in the local chuch.
Our hope is that participants grow in their understanding of both the care they need and the gifts God has given them to share.
Giving thanks in difficult seasons
Thanksgiving can be difficult for someone facing grief, illness, loneliness, or uncertainty. A holiday does not make those burdens disappear.
Christian gratitude leaves room for tears. Scripture teaches us to bring our sorrow to God as well as our praise. We can thank Him for His faithfulness while asking for strength to face something we would never have chosen.
Sometimes gratitude begins with something very small: a meal, a kind conversation, a prayer, or someone just willing to listen.
As we give thanks this year, we can also pay attention to people for whom the season is painful. An invitation, a visit, or a patient conversation may be one of the ways God cares for them through us.
Most of all, we give thanks for God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Every meal, friendship, and opportunity to serve matters, but our deepest hope rests in the Savior who reconciles us to God and teaches us to love our neighbors.
This Thanksgiving, take time to remember the people through whom God has cared for you. Thank Him for them. Where you can, thank them too.
Then consider whom you might encourage, welcome, or serve. You do not need to have everything figured out before offering a listening ear, extending an invitation, or sharing a gift God has given you.
May the gratitude we express around our tables grow into the way we live long after Thanksgiving has passed.
* Our understanding of these relationships has been shaped by the Chalmers Center’s teaching, including Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert’s book, When Helping Hurts.
Partner with us in God’s work of relational restoration.