Fullest Salvation

The week after I broke up with Aaron, Y’shua brought up Psalm 34 in a group setting. Our instructions were to read it and focus a phrase or verse the Holy Spirit highlighted. I couldn’t get past the first line: I will bless the Lord at all times. Two words really—all times. ALL times. And that moment was one of those times, right then, when my heart was breaking and I was confused, just beginning to even find words for the swarm of questions. Bless the Lord. I didn’t want to open my mouth and share. I waited until the last possible moment, but I felt I had to. It was a choice of obedience. I was brutally honest. I don’t feel like thanking the Lord right now. I’m hurting. I’m confused. This isn’t fun. But I have to declare His goodness. He is good. And I bless Him.

That Psalm hounded me. It showed up in the church the next morning, in a book I was reading, in a hand-written card from my grandmother. Okay God, I get it. Gratitude will get me out of this mess.

But I didn’t get it. Not fully. Because I slipped into a disorienting mess within my heart—not so much with processing Aaron as everything else hard in my life that followed. I haven’t been grateful. I haven’t willed my eyes to see the good. I’ve focused on the hard until it has consumed my world. And I’ve complained. It’s too much. God, you are crushing me. So aren’t I justified in not being grateful?

Last September I read a book by Ann Voskamp entitled One Thousand Gifts. It’s all about gratitude being the entrance to joy, even in the midst of the hard. I thought I needed it last fall—and I did—but not nearly as much as I need it now. I’m just begun to re-read it slowly, nibbling on its pages. And the idea that is sticking out so boldly now is not just that gratitude is the secret to unlocking joy, but that gratitude is the means of bringing about the fullness of my salvation; it’s the proof that I really have said Yes! to Y’shua and meant it. “Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in a life until the life realizes the need to give thanks” (40).

She points out that ingratitude is not just a product of my sinfulness—it’s the cause of my sin. “Non-eucharisteo, ingratitude, was the fall—humanity’s discontent with all that God freely gives. That is what has scraped me raw: ungratefulness. Then to find Eden, the abundance of Paradise, I’d need to forsake my non-eucharisteo, my bruised and bloodied ungrateful life, and grab hold to eucharisteo, a lifestyle of thanksgiving” (35).

Really, Lord? In the midst of this mess you want me to thank you? And of course, the answer is yes. Right now. In this mess. Especially in this mess. And not just me finding something good to thank God for in the midst of the bad—those things we grasp at when we are desperate like sunsets, sisters, cups of tea, air to breathe—but to thank Him for was seems to be so bad. Because it’s not bad. It’s good, because He’s sovereign and He has allowed it to strip me of what is harming myself and bring me into conformity with Himself, to make me beautiful, sanctified, holy. This is my salvation, if I have the will to accept and choose to be grateful and not resent. This is, after all, as Voskamp points out, what Y’shua did in the face of what was bitterly hard.

“’On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces…’ (1 Corinthians 11:23-24). Jesus, on the night before the driving hammer and iron piercing through ligament and sinew, receives what God offers as grace (charis), the germ of His thanksgiving (eucharisteo)? Oh. Facing the abandonment of God Himself (does it get any worse than this?), Jesus offers thanksgiving for even that which will break Him and crush Him and would Him and yield a bounty of joy (chara). The mystery always contains more mysteries. Do I really want this way?” (36).

Her honest question is now mine—do I really want this way? This crushing, crucifying way?

My gratitude is what Y’shua wants most from me. The one who offers Thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God (Psalm 50:23). To give thanks is to put my ways in order. To quell the chaos. Then I will offer in [the Lord’s] tent sacrifices with shouts of joy (Psalm 27:6). And there it is again—the joy. It comes because of the sacrifice, not so much because making the sacrifice is a happy experience.

I’ve been away from the farm this week [sorting out the mess of my heart]. I go back tomorrow. I don’t really want to go. I’d rather find something easier. I’ll go. But the bigger question is will I go with gratitude? Will I be thankful for this chance to submit to something I don’t understand, to learn to love that which is hard, to repent for my wrong, to allow the Lord to finish this lesson of shaping me to its fullest? Will I allow gratitude to bring me to my fullest salvation?