The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Gift You Didn’t Want (and Still Wouldn’t Choose)
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Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Death Podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders of Overchemistry Staffing, and today on the podcast, it's a special week. It's Thanksgiving week, and today we are starting a five-part Thanksgiving series that's gonna be a little bit different, okay? We're not just gonna be handing out all those plus check, gratitude, platitude, whatever here. Instead, we're gonna dive into some kind of I hope to be anyway, disruptive, uncomfortable, even painful places where gratitude often starts. So buckle up, it's gonna be a fun week here on the podcast. Welcome and happy Thanksgiving to you. Hopefully, you're taking some time later this week to celebrate all those things that you're thankful for with your family and friends. Today, though, I want to start the series. I want to flip our view of gratitude upside down a little bit. Okay. We're pretty good at being thankful for blessings, good health, great team, everything's going well, growing ministry at the church. That one Sunday where everything just really clicked, and it was like, oh, it couldn't get any better than this. But the truth is that some of the most transformational things that God gives us don't come wrapped up like blessings. They look a lot more like burdens. Let's talk Bible for a second, okay? Joseph's brothers betrayed him. He was sold, he was falsely accused, he was forgotten in prison, and no part of that, let me tell you, not a single part of that to Joseph at the time looked like a blessing. Not a thing. But eventually, Joseph tells his brothers, You what you intended to harm me, God intended it to be good. Now that's some deep gratitude, not the surfacey level thanksgiving for what feels good type thing. It's thankfulness for the transformation that God has worked in us through the pain. Look at Paul, same thing with Paul. He had that mysterious, we still don't know what it is, that thorn in the flesh. Paul begged God at least three times. We only we know he documented it three times to take it away. But what was God's answer? God's answer was no. No. Instead, God said, My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in your weakness. So that's not a yes, that's a gift that you didn't ask for. Okay? And we're crying out loud, let's look at Jesus, sweating blood in Beth in Gethsemane, taking asking the Father to let the cup pass. Talk about a gift that no one would choose, but it changed everything. It changed eternity, it changed you and your future. So I'll be honest, I've had seasons where I felt like God gave me the opposite of what I prayed for or what I asked for. Not just a little detour, but what felt like just an absolute dead end. And at first it felt like God was distant. We're ignoring him, be ignoring me, but over time I realized that he was doing something in me that couldn't happen any other way. Character wasn't being formed in comfort and perspective that only comes when your plans crash. That's how you get a deeper empathy that I couldn't have ever faked before. And now I wouldn't trade that pain because of what it produced. Sometimes that gift that breaks you is really the one that you needed. It's the one you would never have asked for, but it breaks you and it's the one that builds you. So if you're in today, and I know a lot of you that are listening are in this stage today, if you're in this, why in the world is this happening? What's up, God? If you're in that type of a moment right now, if this year didn't go how you planned it all, what if it's exactly what God intended? Not to punish, but to deepen and to strengthen and to build something unshakable inside of you. And that's something that's worth giving thanks for. So here's your challenge for today. Don't just be thankful for what you like, be thankful for what God's using. What's one gift in your life that you didn't want but might actually be shaping you right now, or maybe something that you didn't want earlier, maybe 20, 30 years ago, but man, it was exactly what formed in you. I've got a couple of those stories myself. It's what formed in you who you are today, and it's made you stronger. I'd love to hear your story. Reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And what would change if you trusted that God is working right now? If you're having that kind of a year, well, what in the world is happening? What would happen today if you trusted that God is working in the pain and not just in the peace? Maybe write a short little prayer of Thanksgiving today for something that's still unresolved in your life, and then that let that be your honest act of trust and thanksgiving this week. I hope this has been helpful. As I said, we're turning that whole thankfulness thing over on its head this week. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow for another edition right here on the Healthy Church Dad Podcast. Hope you have a great week. Happy Thanksgiving.
