A Thanksgiving Trifecta: Giving Thanks for Our Vocations - Part 1

This year for our Thanksgiving Eve worship at Cross of Christ, we focused our giving thanks on the blessings the Lord provides through God’s gift of vocation in the areas of the home, the community, and the church. So for your Thanksgiving blog reading enjoyment, here is the first commentary of the three-part series…

Giving Thanks for Our Callings in the Home – Ephesians 5:21-6:4

You hear the word “vocation” and I would guess you think of a job. You hear the word “calling” and perhaps you think of someone like a pastor who serves in the church. The fact is, every one of us has been called by the Lord to serve, not just here in church though. No, he calls each and every one of us to serve our neighbor out there in the wide world.

Who is that elusive “neighbor”? Every person God has seen fit to bless through the callings he has given to each of us in three basic areas—the home, the community, and the church. That neighbor could be the person next door, the customer of your business, the child under your care, or the sibling in Christ with you here. Basically God blesses your neighbor, whoever that is and wherever they might be, through you. At the same time, you serve the Lord when you faithfully carry out those God-given callings.

Think about it. You wouldn’t be in church if the Lord had not used the callings of others to get you here, whether the parents who raised or raise you, the pastor who shared the Gospel with you, the factory workers who built your vehicle, or the farmers who produced the food you ate for supper. God uses all these callings to bless us and all our callings to bless others.

So why talk about them on Thanksgiving? It should be obvious. The Lord in his grace could use miracles, but normally he uses our vocations to provide blessing to us and others. As we gather to give thanks for those countless blessings, we ought to also give thanks for God’s blessings of our vocations.

The most basic of all those vocations is found in the home—the family. Every one of us has been called into a family. Now our callings in that family may change from child and sibling to spouse or grandparent or extended family, but we’re still blessed by being part of a family. In fact, the Lord uses the family to provide the basic building block that gives structure to society and even provides the basis for our callings as citizens and workers. God cares very much about the family. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t devote so many verses and so many chapters throughout his Word to the family.

Within the family, we have the blessed gift of marriage. St. Paul lifts up marriage as a beautiful illustration of the intimate union Christ has with his Church—Christ with his servant-leadership willing to sacrifice it all out of love for his bride, and the Church willingly submitting out of respect for Christ’s headship. Struggle and strife and pain can come when marriage isn’t seen this way, but by God’s grace through marriage, God provides countless blessings to husband and wife. He provides loving companionship without comparison, sexual happiness that is only allowable in the intimate union of husband and wife, and children.

Yes, children are a blessing and the family is a blessing to them. Through the family, God cares for children as parents are called to be the source of his blessing, even when diapers need to be changed, flu bugs attack, shoes need to be bought, or kids go off to college. Parents, especially fathers, are also called to train their children in the ways of the Lord, so they know about their Savior, starting when parents bring them to Baptism.

Children have a holy calling too. They are to obey their parents as if they were obeying the Lord himself, which really they are. As all the family members, then, carry out their God-given callings within the family, they are to do it in Christ-like love by which God blesses the family and society. All this is possible because God values the family, even putting himself into a family when Jesus became a son. May our gracious Lord then continue to bless you through your callings in the home, and for those blessings we give grateful thanks!