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Thankfulness and sentness

Lynne Baab • Thursday December 10 2015

Thankfulness and sentness

When I was a young adult I got to hear John Stott speak about Jesus’ last words to his disciples in John 13 to 17. I remember so many things about those four talks at Urbana 76.

In John 17:18, Jesus says to his disciples, “As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you into the world.” Stott talked about this verse as a foundation that helps us understand what we are called to do on this earth. The notion of being sent into the world as Jesus was sent helps us understand our mission.

A brief note about Bible translation helps us understand the connection between John 17:18 and mission. As early as two centuries after Jesus said those words, Christians begin to translate the New Testament into Latin. (It was originally written in Greek.) And the Latin word for “sent” is “missio.” That’s the word from which we get “mission.” So mission is all about sentness.

It’s easy to think that mission is something done only by missionaries. Or that mission is something a bit exotic and strange that we only do occasionally, when we can gird up our loins to engage in something difficult and awkward. Instead, John Stott’s perspective that influenced me so much is that every day we are called to understand our sentness and live into it.

I’ve been writing on thankfulness the past two weeks, and I want to continue that theme by writing here about how thankfulness helps us participate in God’s mission. I believe that thankfulness helps us notice what God is already doing, so we can participate in God’s work in the world. Without thankfulness, we focus too much on what is lacking, which can be overwhelming.

There’s a lot of talk these days about figuring out where God is at work so we can join in. How can we do that without thankfulness? Here’s an example. Suppose you are deeply concerned about a cousin who has cancer. You get regular updates so you can pray, you bring meals over and you try to be helpful as you can.

Imagine that you engage in some thankfulness prayers for the situation. As you scan around for things to be thankful for – admittedly a hard thing to do when you are very worried about someone – you find yourself thanking God that this illness has brought your cousin closer to her sister. The two of them had always had a difficult relationship, and now they are finding more common ground.

How does this relate to mission? Maybe instead of bringing meals over, you could do something to help the patient and her sister have more time together. Or maybe when you bring the meals over you could say something like, “I’m hoping that maybe you can invite your sister over to share this meal with you.” Or, “Maybe this meal will free up some time for you so you can spend it with your sister.” Thankfulness helps us see what God is already doing so we can join in.

Thankfulness helps us see beyond the needs in any given situation, which are often so disheartening. Thankfulness prayers give us hope, because we see the small (and sometimes big) things that make a difference. Thankfulness prayers help us find motivation and energy to enter into God’s mission because they help us see the wonderful ways God is already working.

What a cool invitation from God. We get to participate in God’s work! And thankfulness helps us join in with hope and joy.

(Here’s a fabulous book that explains clearly and vividly the theme of being sent – Sentness: Six Postures of Missional Christians by Kim Hammond and Darren Cronshaw. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column.)

Previous posts on this blog about thankfulness:

A thankfulness challenge 
Another thankfulness challenge  
Growing in thankfulness  
Drawing near to God by noticing patterns
A cat with a noble character



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