Keeping My Heart Thankful

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thes 5:18

Thankful in All Things?

I find it easy to keep my heart thankful when I think about my beautiful kids and my husband, our family and friends, a comfortable home to live in, food on the table, and a hot cup of coffee in the quiet, early morning. It is harder for me to be thankful for the losses and the painful disappointments and the challenges. Maybe I can say, “I still trust You, God, I know you are faithful, and I believe you are good.” But “thank you” is harder. Nothing in me feels thankful for hard things. Why does He want me to say it “in everything?” Why is this His will for me?

Discovering Christopher Columbus

We are homeschooling this year, and everything is a first for me. One fun thing about it is that I’m learning a lot of things I never learned in school. We are aiming to steer clear of text books when we can, which is easier to do in some subjects than others—History, for one. Yesterday we finished reading a book about Christopher Columbus written by Ingri & Edgar D’Aulaire.

I always thought that Columbus “discovered America” (After sailing the Ocean Blue in 1492, of course). But yesterday’s story was much more interesting and insightful than anything I remember learning in school about Columbus. Speaking of which, I love this quote I heard the other day, credited to a man named Sloyd:

 An education is what you’re left with after you’ve forgotten everything you learned in school.

 Sobering thought, right?

Here’s What Happened In A Nutshell

Columbus and the Vikings Get Credit

So Columbus was the first guy from Europe—except for the Vikings— to sail west, into the unknown, and hit land. Norsemen (Vikings) had landed where Newfoundland is today, and sailed south to present-day Massachusetts around 1000 AD, settling there for a handful of years. There are other stories of long ago explorers as well, but Columbus and the Vikings are the most verifiable and best known. So they get credit. 

He Was Never in North America

Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador on his first journey, and then sailed to Cuba and Haiti. He made three subsequent journeys, four in total, all of which he spent exploring the coastlines of Central and South America in search of a passageway that if found, he felt sure would be a short cut to China and India. He never actually set foot on the continent of North America.

Exploitation of the Discovered Lands

Reading about his journeys and his life gave me a lot to think about. He believed in God, and in the beginning, he acknowledged God’s provision and protection through the hardships he faced. He even felt that maybe God had chosen him to “sail west across the sea to find the riches of the East for himself and to carry the Christian faith to the heathens.” Yet, as we learn, at the hands of the men who sailed with Columbus and others who later settled on the islands, exploitation awaited the ‘discovered’ lands; suffering, their native inhabitants. Greed and cruelty had its way; corruption throve, and eventually, European diseases decimated the native populations.

What Columbus Wanted to Happen

Columbus wanted to discover that short cut to China. He wanted to bring back gold and riches to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, a portion of which would be his to keep. He was seeking wealth, but more than that, he wanted to be seen by the king and queen as worthy of honor and position—he was seeking the favor of man. Columbus had it all mapped out: secure a patron and a fleet, sail west, be the first to discover a passage to China, get to China and bring back the booty, become rich and famous. This was the plan.

What Happened Instead

The Waiting Time

Yet instead, many difficult years passed before Columbus would even be able to gain an audience with the king and queen of Spain. He faced scorn, shipwreck, poverty, discouragement, and great personal loss during the long years that he waited for a door to open for him to sail west. When he finally gained the patronage of the king and queen of Spain, he sailed and hit land, and returned to enjoy a little bit of glory. But it was short lived.

Too Much Disappointment

As his story continues, Columbus experiences betrayal. He is arrested by jealous men, chained, and falsely accused of treason. He falls out of favor with the king and queen. He loses his reputation, and he eventually slips into obscurity as other men sail west and begin to settle in the New World. He is given rickety, worm-eaten ships for his fourth and final journey, and has to spend a year marooned on a lonely island before being rescued. And he never does find that shortcut to China.

Perspective Cultivates a Thankful Heart

It all turned out so differently than he’d hoped. D’Aulaire writes this about Columbus’s last years:

 The rest of his days he spent at his home in Valladolid in Spain, wondering and pondering why he had not found the way to the East. He blamed the unknown continent [South America] that had barred his way. It never occurred to him to be grateful that the unknown American continent had been in his way. Otherwise he and his men would have starved to death on the endless way to Asia. For the world was three times as wide around as Columbus had believed.

 Many people say that Columbus was poor and forsaken in his old age. That is not true. He wasn’t poor, but he was bitter because he was not the richest and mightiest seaman in the world. Columbus was a great man. But he was not a modest man. He wanted too much, and so he did not get enough.

His Bigger Picture

Look what he had accomplished. He had sailed into the unknown, across the Atlantic, and had succeeded. He had paved the way to the New World. And we all know his name.

 The whole world acknowledges him as a Great Explorer and credits him for discovering the New World. As we look at his bigger picture—the one that transcends his lifetime and exceeds his own line of vision—his inheritance was bigger and better than what he had imagined or hoped for. And God allowed his smaller plan to be frustrated in order to preserve him and bless him.

There’s Always More to the Story

This really struck a chord in me because it was a picture of what is true for all of us—there is always more to the story than what we can see—about the surrounding circumstances and the bigger picture.

 It never occurred to him to be grateful that the unknown American continent had been in his way. Where we see a great big annoying obstacle, God may see and use it to preserve and bless us in ways we can’t yet imagine. Where we experience failure and disappointed dreams, He may be preparing and positioning us for something we could not have otherwise carried or stewarded.

Reason to Be Thankful

Somewhere within the thing that looks like pain, loss, or disappointment, God’s wisdom and love are present there, and He is already redeeming it. I will maybe never know why the thing has happened this way, but what if I could know without doubt that there is reason to be thankful for it? That for reasons unknown to me, God allowed it because He sees things I can’t see, and knows things I don’t know?

 God is good in every way. There is nothing He does or allows that is not motivated by His Love for me, and held firmly against the perfect plum line of His Love, Justice, Mercy, and Goodness.

The Rich Life That Comes with a Thankful Heart

If Columbus spent his last days bitter, then what a waste.

What if instead, he had spent his last years reflecting with satisfaction on the adventures he’d had and the discoveries he had made? He might have felt full of gratitude for all the ways God had protected and preserved him. Sailing was what he had loved as a boy, knowing from a very young age that he wanted to become a seaman. What a gift that he’d been granted the opportunity to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

What a full life he had led, following his passion. And He’d been blessed to have a son who grew up and sailed with him. With a heart full and full of gratitude, and in communion with God, he might have been able to forgive and release those who had hurt him. He might have found peace and contentment, and even joy in his final years.

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–meditate on these things (Phil 4:8).