What Would You Be Thankful For If You Lost Everything?

Lone Ranger by Jake J at www.freeimages.com

It is Thanksgiving time!  For most of us that means food, football, and fun!  We reflect and offer thanksgiving for all the abundant blessings that God has given us.

But what would you be thankful for if you lost everything?  Imagine if it was all stripped away, what would you have left?  This may seem so hypothetical and depressing you don’t even what to consider it,  but it happened to one man in the Bible.  Job lost his wealth, property, children, and reputation (Job 1-2).

We think of the pilgrims celebrating the first thanksgiving because of their harvest with plenty of food, but we forget it came following a difficult winter wherein thirteen of eighteen married women died.  Three of thirteen children perished and four entire families lost their lives.

What would you have to be thankful for if you were Job or experienced a difficult winter like the pilgrims?  Consider these items and ask do they belong to you?

1. People who sincerely loved you.  Job still had his wife, who may have encouraged him to curse God and die out of a sincere love of hating to see him suffer so harshly (Job 2:9-10).  He had three friends who travelled from their homes and sat with him for seven days in silence (Job 2:11-13).  When tragedy strikes you find out who your friends truly are and are mightily grateful for each one of them.
2. The truth of God’s holy Word.  If you lost everything you would look for some bedrock foundational principles you could depend upon, because the frailty of this life was so evident.  The Word of God would mean so much to you as it presents great promises of God.  it offers assurances of God’s love and His steadfast endurance.
3. Prayer. Job’s friends offer no true comfort to him, so he moves to petitioning and venting his complaints to God.  He questions, accuses, and makes requests of God.  If we lost everything, our prayers would be raw with emotion and need.  But we would be thankful we could lay our burdens at God’s throne.
4. Hope.  Job lacks much hope for life after death.  He did not have the revealed hope we understand from the New Testament.  Today, we understand our suffering is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us (Rom. 8:18).  Hope is described as the anchor of our soul (Heb. 6:19).  We have great hope today because of the gospel.
5. Heaven.  Job didn’t have a clear knowledge of heaven like we enjoy from the New Testament.  Yet, he plead for a Redeemer and desired to see God (Job 19:23-27).  If we lost everything, we would still cling to the hope of the restoration of all meaningful things in heaven.  The book of Job ends with Job being restored to his former state of wealth and blessings (ch. 42).  This ending patterns the Christian’s own ending in heaven.  Heaven is the last word when it comes to our hope, faith, and blessings.

What would you have to be thankful for if you lost everything?