by Nick Miller

This past week we had a couple of friends over to our house to hangout and we needed to grab some dinner. Of all the amazing places to eat in Monroeville, Pennsylvania we had to go to the most wonderful place on earth... Chick-Fil-A!

We were in a rush to get back home so we went through the drive through with a massive order. We finally tell the woman helping us our entire order and she read it back to us perfectly! My brother-in-law and I were so impressed that she could recite this list that we had to compliment her on the amazing job she did.

We get to the window, and we ask to see the woman who helped us. Initially, the young man at the window looked at us like we were crazy and angry. However, we finally saw her and started thanking her and encouraging her for her help on our massive order. If you know me and my brother-in-law, we were screaming with excitement and passion! She and the entire staff were laughing yet thanked us for the encouragement.

This overwhelming act of thankfulness seemed shocking to this team, which really left me perplexed. She did her job well, wasn’t it worthy of this level of encouragement?

Perhaps gratitude or thankfulness has become an abnormal mentality or behavior in our culture today. The world doesn’t often slow down their pace for the day and show people gratitude for other’s help, service, selflessness, or love.

In this moment at a drive through window, we brightened their evening with a simple act of gratitude, a small word of encouragement, and an act of thanks. We tend to view gratitude as a way to make people happy, or an obligation when someone is kind. However, there is more power to thankfulness than just lifting someone’s spirits for the day.

Throughout Jesus Christ’s time in ministry, He brought a new mentality around the idea of thankfulness. Numerous times in the scriptures, it states that Jesus “gave thanks” in His everyday life. His thankfulness predicated His miraculous acts multiple times within His ministry. He even simply thanked His Father for “hearing” and listening to Him (John 11:41-43). Jesus modeled what it looks like to walk a life full of gratitude and thankfulness. Why would Jesus, the Son of God, give thanks continually and walk a life full of gratitude?

Jesus understood a powerful heavenly truth behind thankfulness: Thankfulness brings supernatural power into our natural world. I wanted to take a look at a famous miracle where Jesus exercises this gratitude and it changes everything. Jesus is standing in front of thousands of people, teaching them about the God, the Savior, and the Kingdom of God. Hours pass by, and these people have been engaged for the entire day with the Gospel, or the good news! However, there is a problem... the thousands of people need to eat and continue to listen or go home and leave Jesus. The disciples are concerned about this dilemma and suggest that Jesus sends the masses home after a long day of teaching and preaching. Jesus, looks and the crowd in front of Him and suggests a different option:

"Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.’ He replied, ‘You give them something to eat.’” - Luke 9:12-13

Side note: I love that Jesus wants to partner with us to perform miracles that change the world!

Back to the story. Jesus is committed to feeding these physically and spiritually hungry people in front of Him. He then commands everyone to sit in groups, and the disciples were to break everyone into groups of fifty. This is where thankfulness comes into play, but it is so different than our normal picture of gratitude. Jesus proceeds to take the leftovers that a young boy gave him and looks to heaven with a heart of thanks:

"Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” - Luke 9:16-17

Jesus’ thankful heart broke the natural limitations on a loaf of bread! Heaven invaded earth in response to His intentional action of thanking God for the miracles. Gratitude is not just a simple encouraging action, but it is a powerful heavenly action that can shape the world. If thankfulness is that powerful, would you let thankfulness be a greater part of your life? How would “giving thanks” invite heaven into your world today? I believe thankfulness would change our homes, our jobs, our families, our churches, our neighborhoods, and our country. Imagine a community that puts heaven into motion with a thankful, Christ-centered heart. This community could break the limitations of the natural world that we experience everyday.

This wasn’t just Jesus’ heart. Look at what Paul, who was perhaps the most influential Christ- follower to ever share the Good News, writes in a letter to the Thessalonians.

"Rejoice always! Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” - Thessalonians 5:16–18

He understood that when we operate from a place of gratitude or thankfulness towards Christ, that our world will be forever changed by the heavenly power that Jesus gives us.

photo: unsplash.com