Is It That Simple?

The dots are connecting. The picture is forming. My mind, my heart, my spirit are seeing. Really, truly seeing. The meaning of this life. This temporary life. 

This mission. This ministry, if you will. This calling that the Lord placed deep within me back in August of 2012. It's coming alive! God set me on this path to explain, to understand, to see, really see the necessity of thanks, of daily thanks in all circumstances. His course for me was to go to His Holy Word and see what He has to say about this necessary action, this vitally important form of reality - thanksgiving, thanks and all of its forms from the Holy Bible.

In this pursuit over the last nearly two years, when introduced to my mission, a handful of godly women have made the connection with what God laid on my heart to what another published author had a similar burning desire to discover and share with the world. Her name is Ann Voskamp and her work is "One Thousand Gifts." I highly encourage you to read this amazing, deeply creative, powerful revelation in words.

We differ significantly in our approach. However, I believe our point is basically the same. I believe that our inner drive to understand, to see, to prove to ourselves and others that there is a way to navigate this earthly life and find it full of the good things we crave - joy, peace, love. A desire to live above the chaos, the heartbreak, the monotony, the overwhelming pain, the disappointments, the loss, the brokenness. We've both landed on the same word - thanks.

The verses that brought me to this overwhelming excitement, this super understanding - friends, I am shaking uncontrollably here, an ache in my head is pounding, my mind is racing at light speed as my fingers try to keep up. I hope you get as excited about this post as I am to share it. Oh, yeah, back to the verses. I have already written about these in Matthew and Mark's accounts of The Last Supper. This time they are recorded with Luke's perspective. It looks like the good ol' power of three is what it took for me to see clearly. Typical me.

"After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, 'Take this and divide it among you." Luke 22:17

"For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." (Luke 22:18)

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.'" Luke 22:19

The rest of this post is credited to Ann Voskamp and comes directly from her book "One Thousand Gifts" from the second chapter titled, "a word to live ... and die by" (excerpt from pgs. 31-35). She describes this unveiling of the depth of vital necessity that giving thanks means to our personal outlook and experience and contribution on and to this life and our connection with our creator God. Please read on and get as excited as I am and praise God for His super cool way of connecting the dots through other's influence. That's our relational God. Thanks be to His Great Name!

     The face of Jesus flashes. Jesus, the God-Man with his own termination date. Jesus, the God-Man who came to save me from prisons of fear and guilt and depression and sadness. With an expiration of less than twelve hours, what does Jesus count as all most important?

     "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them..." (Luke 22:19 NIV) my emphasis added.

     This. I live in this place, make porridge, scrub toilets, do laundry, and for days, weeks, I am brave and I do get out of bed and I think on this. I study this, the full life, the being fully ready for the end. I start to think that maybe there is a way out of nightmares to dreams? Maybe?

     I thumb, run my fingers across the pages of the heavy and thick books bound. I read it slowly. In the original language, "he gave thanks" reads "eucharisteo."

     I underline it on the page. Can it lay a sure foundation under a life? Offer the fullest life?

     The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning "grace." Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks.

     But there is more, and I read it. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning "joy." Joy. Ah... yes. I might be needing me some of that. That might be what the quest for more is all about - that which Augustine claimed, "Without exception... all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy." (Confessions of Saint Augustine, book 10, chapter 21, Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

     I breathe deep, like a sojourner finally coming home. That has always been the goal of the fullest life - joy. And my life knew exactly how elusive that slippery three-letter word, joy, can be. I think of it then again, that night of nightmares, the flailing, frantic, moon-eyed lunge for more. More what? And this was it; I could tell how my whole being responded to that one word. I longed for more life, for more holy joy.

     That's what I was struggling out of nightmares to reach, to seize. Joy. But where can I seize this holy grail of joy? I look back down to the page. Was this the clue to the quest of all most important? Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving. I sit there long... wondering... is it that simple?

     Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?

     So then as long as thanks is possible... I think this through. As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible. Whenever, meaning - now; wherever, meaning - here. The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be - unbelievably - possible! The only place we need see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now.

     I whisper it out loud, let the tongue feel these sounds, the ear hear their truth.

     Charis. Grace.

     Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving.

     Chara. Joy.

     A triplet of stars, a constellation in the black.

     A threefold cord that might hold a life? Offer a way up into the fullest life?

     Grace, thanksgiving, joy. Eucharisteo.

     A Greek word... that might make meaning of everything?

     ... I might have found the holy grail... and lost it, moved on. And yet really - hadn't God set the holy grail in the center of Christianity? Eucharisteo, it's the central symbol of Christianity. Thanksgiving. The table with its emblems is the essence of what it means to live the Christ-life. Sunday after Sunday in our nondenominational Bible church, we're formally invited to take the bread, the wine. Doesn't the continual repetition of beginning our week at the table of the Eucharist clearly place the whole of our lives into the context of thanksgiving?

     And too... it's the most common of foods, bread. The drink of the vine has been part of our meal taking across centuries and cultures. Jesus didn't institute the Eucharist around some unusual, rare, once-a-year event, but around this continual act of eating a slice of bread, drinking a cup of fruit from the vine. First Corinthians 11:26 reads, "whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup" (NIV) - whenever.

     Like every day. Whenever we eat.

     Eucharisteo - whenever: now. Joy - wherever: here.

     Doesn't Christ, at His death meal, set the entirety of our everyday bread and drink lives into the framework of eucharisteo?

     ... How Jesus took the bread and gave thanks... and then the miracle of Jesus enduring the cross for the joy set before Him.

     ... How there is thanks... and then the mind-blowing miracle! 

     ... Eucharisteo - thanksgiving - always precedes the miracle.

I'll stop there. Throughout Voskamp's book she is doing an experiment to force herself to see more clearly the things in life to be thankful for. She creates the list (from the books title) of one thousand things to be thankful for. It trains her eyes, her mind, her spirit, her whole being - to be more aware of God's gifts in each and every situation - good and bad - happy and sad - joy giving and utterly frustrating. I haven't begun my list yet - but I think I will begin today. I'll start with this:

1. The epiphany of the word thanks - eucharisteo.

Jesus, at His death meal symbolizing His atonement for us... His ultimate gift to all His beloved children... gave thanks to His Father. He taught us the ultimate response for His ultimate gift. Not only that, He perfectly placed it into an ordinary circumstance - eating and drinking - a meal. A necessary, life sustaining act. The precious difference is, the simple truth is, we, as Christ-followers, don't just get physical life sustained in this act of praise, thanks, trust, belief, faith in Christ as our Savior, we get life sustained as our Father designed it - life eternally sustained beyond this earthly life in the glory of Heaven. In His holy presence. No longer separated. It's that simple. It's that real. It's that full of grace and joy and thanks. Eucharisteo! 

"And be thankful." Colossians 3:15b