Being Hijacked at Gunpoint
When we moved to South Africa to help plant a church in 1995, Johannesburg was a war zone with more than a thousand car hijacking per month at gunpoint. A year later it was my turn. My 4-year-old daughter Elly and I were held up in a hijacking attempt in our own driveway on a Friday night.
I can still see clearly the man with the pistol, his two accomplices flanking both sides of the car wanting to steal our vehicle. It was awful. I scolded him from inside the locked car and laid on the horn. No help came. It was truly a miracle that we were not both shot dead right there in our driveway, but it was not our time to go. We survived.
But when you experience trauma, the trauma is not over with the experience. I had to relive it a thousand times, retell the story a thousand times. This compulsive reflection backward on traumatic incidents opens up a huge key to the discipline of being th(i)nkful. Your reflection can make the original incident better or worse.
Objective Experience vs. Subjective Experience
I stumbled over an interesting concept recently while reading The Happiness Advantage, by Shawn Achor. He shares how there are many ways to help promote happiness in our lives. Oddly enough, happiness does not come from outside stimuli but is built from within our brains depending on how we shape our brain’s neural pathways. We can create happiness even within difficult circumstances. His use of the term “post-traumatic growth” especially fascinated me.
When a person goes through a traumatic experience, that person experiences the happening objectively at first. But the later subjective re-experiencing of the happening is what I want to focus on. We relive notable experiences many, many times. It is in this subjective replay of the original experience where the key lies. You can choose how you relive an experience.
My Own Battle
As I reeled through my own subjective re-experiencing of the hijacking over and over, one of the keys to healing was to rehearse my gratitude for how God helped me through every part of that test.
- God had prepared me earlier in the day by rehearsing a lot of verses about fear with a girl I was counseling;
- Neither Elly nor I were touched, hurt, shot, or killed;
- They didn’t get our car (that time);
- We had just filled up the car – they didn’t steal a car with a full tank!
- We had a short-term missionary’s bags in the back – they didn’t steal a car with a luggage bonus!
- God caused them fear and confusion when our gate started to close on its timer;
- Elly and I got in the house and locked up while they were regrouping;
- Although they jumped the wall and tried to get in, they never did;
- We were privileged to be attacked by the evil one because God was transforming the lives of people through the gospel;
- We had a sense that God was right there with us.
God’s grace in helping me to be th(i)nkful as I reflected on the trauma provided me with post traumatic growth. My faith-walk with the Lord actually grew stronger.
A Challenge
As we leave 2018 and move into the brand new year of 2019 in a few days, I would like to challenge you to make a simple “thank you” part of your living. As you process daily things, as well as work through things of the past, insert a simple “thank you.” Let God help you to develop eyes to see not only all His blessings, for which you can be grateful, but also to see His designs in the dark places, because He is there too. And having His hand hold you through a valley of shadows is a cause for deeper gratitude as you get to know His ways, and heart, and character, and purposes more deeply.
At first you may feel awkward and clumsy in how to express this thankfulness, but don’t give up. Keep on forging that pattern of looking for things to think thanks for. It will bring a cupboard full of blessings for you. Just image this time next year reading through a notebook of daily things that you were th(i)nkful for. I can promise you that you will be edified and encouraged. Life will serve you hard things in 2019, no doubt, but as you move those things through the sieve of giving thanks to God for everything, you will grow.
“May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father,
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” Colossians 1:11-12
He posed the question that more than a few Christian kids have asked: What were we giving to the One who had the birthday?
Take a piece of paper. Give careful thought and write out five characteristics that you love about your God. Take your time and use words that describe the attribute well. Next, write out five things that He has done this year for which you’re thankful.
Did you know sequoias rely on fire to release the seeds from their cones? Those same fires burn off ground debris exposing soil in which seedlings can take root, open forest canopies through which sunlight can reach young seedlings, reduce competition, recycle nutrients into the soil. Sometimes, fire is necessary.
new fresh growth will slowly happen.
Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. In 1863 President Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
It is interesting to note that President Lincoln proclaimed that thanks and praise be directed to God. He recognized that it wasn’t enough for us to just voice our thanks for each other and for things, but it needed to be to our Creator Father who gave us life. We need to remember to be thankful to, not just thankful for.
Hebrews says that praise is a sacrifice. Jesus’ work enables us to take our sacrifice into the very presence of God. In having the opportunity to praise God, what would you say? If you have a small view of God, the sacrifice of praise will bother you, and you will back out of His presence.
One day, people from every ethnic group will join together around the Throne and lift up their praise to the One who is worth it, far above all other people and things (Rev. 7:9-10; 19:1-8). How cool to get a head start here on earth. 🙂 So whether it is thank you, tusen takk, Ngibonga, do jeh, grazie, merci, danke, khop khun, or arigato, let’s give praise and thanks to our God!
I moved there when I was four years old. I have so many fond memories of that little town, two and a half hours north of Oslo. That is where I learned to speak Norwegian. That is where I began to attend the primary school known as Fagerlund Skole. I had the most amazing teacher, Fru Mørland.
No big deal really, it is just the laundry detergent that she used. The look of the box stuck with me.
Everything can be an absolute mess all around you, but when you let yourself get pulled into that moment and the beauty in such a small thing … you can breathe. In such moments, I am always reminded that God gives opportunity for us to stop and appreciate Him and everything He’s given us ALL THE TIME … it’s up to us to take those opportunities, catch those little breathers, be amazed at the world around us, and be thankful for what we have. 
in the wrong order. We tend to look first at our circumstances and try to interpret God’s love and care, which seems missing.
The strength of being th(i)nkful can only come from trust in a sovereign Creator and God that is good and worthy.
that men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it…I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” C.S. Lewis
The gratitude is unfinished if it finds its end only in your thoughts.
I love it. I know that is God’s grace. People are praying for us and we feel it. Thank you if you are one of them. 🙂 I am surprised at how much I love it here. The years we spent up in Johannesburg are coming in handy as there are familiar things mixed in with the new. So th(i)nkful!
how Lancelot willingly volunteered to run the gauntlet? There were blades, spikes, swords, bludgeons, paddles, and heavy balls whirling about him at different speeds, and from different directions.
around 10 pm and we arrive in Amanzimtoti, South Africa, on Thursday morning, Lord willing. These past few months we have been so busy preparing and packing … and today we go.
th(i)nkful 