C.S. Lewis on giving thanks

On another blog I read the following C.S. Lewis quote:

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is ‘good,’ because it is good, if ‘bad’ because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”–Letters: C.S. Lewis/Don Giovanni Calabria (10 August 1948), Par. 7, pp. 49, 51; cited in The Quotable Lewis, p. 579.

As we approach Thanksgiving, we ought to remember the balance expressed by C.S. Lewis on the subject of thanksgiving. It is all too easy to give thanks only when things are going well. It is more difficult to give thanks to God when thing are going very badly. Like the tormentors of Job (and I recommend reading the Book of Job) we equate blessings with God’s favor and difficulties with God’s punishment. Yet, in the Book of Job we are told that such is not the correct interpretation.  Rather, God tells Job’s tormentors (in chapter 42) that:

“After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.’ So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.”

We do not know the why of all that happens in this world. We often forget that we are in a war with the powers of the prince of the air. Particularly, as Americans, we tend to assume, like the British did during their period of Empire, and the Byzantines did during their period of Empire, and the Romans did during the period of Empire, that what we do is much too valuable for God to take it apart. Yet, history itself ought to teach us that God has no problem allowing a time of severe social and cultural upheaval if that is what is required. We often expect God to be “fair” and “just” until he is fair and just. Then we promptly invoke his name and ask him to be merciful.

And so, this Thanksgiving, I ask you to do what our forefathers did, to give thanks, but also to acknowledge our manifold sins and offenses before God, so that he may give us his grace and healing. Let us not assume “empire thinking” and assume that God must support us. Rather, let us assume, as did Washington and Lincoln, that we need to come before God thanking him that he has blessed us in spite of ourselves.