God Doesn’t Get You Just Halfway

The Eve of Thanksgiving
November 26, 2025
Philippians 4:6
“God Doesn’t Get You Just Halfway”

On this Thanksgiving Eve, when many people are traveling near and far to be with loved ones, I want to share a story written by a man named Richard King that appeared in the online Guideposts publication. He writes: “I was a college student in Illinois that Thanksgiving, and I couldn’t wait to get home to Massachusetts for the holidays. A friend’s mother offered me a lift as far as upstate New York, where my parents were going to pick me up. Mrs. Case and I drove all through the chilly night. Just after sunrise on Thanksgiving morning, the engine quit and we rolled to a stop on a deserted highway somewhere in western New York. Mrs. Case said calmly, ‘God doesn’t get you just halfway. Let’s pray, Richard.’ After we prayed a little, she turned the key again. The engine coughed and started. The car lurched down the road. We barely made it to a garage at the next exit. I found the owner in back. ‘Lucky you caught me,’ he said. ‘We’re closed today. I just came in to clean up.’ He checked the engine, then gave us a funny look. ‘Who pushed you in from the highway?’ We told him no one. He shook his head. ‘That’s impossible,’ he insisted. ‘A part is burned out and the engine can’t run without it.’ He didn’t have the part, and he told us no other shops were open that day. ‘I doubt anybody has it in stock anyway,’ he said. Seeing our stricken expressions, he said, ‘Won’t hurt to try, I suppose.’ He went to make a call. In a few minutes, he was back. ‘My buddy’s shop is closed, but he just happened to be there doing some paperwork. Strange, huh? He’s got the part you need.’ Mrs. Case delivered me to where my parents were waiting with their car. At home in time for Thanksgiving dinner, I said a special thank you, because now I knew: God doesn’t get you just halfway” (Almost Home for the Holidays - Guideposts). That is a story of faith and of thanksgiving to the God who doesn’t get you just halfway. That becomes the theme for preaching this evening. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

In the Old Testament lesson (Deuteronomy 8:1-10), God’s people are getting ready to enter into the Promised Land after their forty years’ of wandering in the wilderness. Before they would cross over the Jordan River, Moses was doing a great big review session with the people about everything God had done for them and all that he had instructed them to do as his chosen covenant people. That lesson from Deuteronomy chapter 8 outlines how God had provided for his people; how he had tested them out there in the wilderness. It is that final verse that speaks especially to the theme of thanksgiving: “And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:10). Because of God’s gracious care and providence, we bless the Lord, which means we give thanks and praise to our God. Sometimes life can feel like we’ve been out wandering in the wilderness; not knowing the way forward and just doing our best to survive. It’s not an easy place to be in life. God’s gracious care and providence come to us then, sometimes without our even realizing it, sometimes in surprising ways as Richard King related in that opening story of getting home for Thanksgiving. The Lord sustains us day by day as he leads us through the wilderness and into the place where he would have us be. God didn’t just get his chosen people halfway through the wilderness only to leave them high and dry all by themselves. No, indeed. God continued to lead them all the way to the Promised Land, and He will do the same for us today. We worship and serve a God who doesn’t get you just halfway.  

Look again at those moving words that open the Epistle lesson (Philippians 4:6-20): “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” We live in a very anxious time. Perhaps every age would say that about the time in which they live. There is an ever-growing awareness of anxiety in our lives, and this at ever younger ages. Anxiety in children is a very real thing. Our faith has something to say about these anxious-ridden times in which we live: “In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). The antidote to an anxious heart is to give thanks, and from this flows that blessed peace of God which “surpasses all understanding.” God doesn’t get you just halfway. In Jesus, God meets us in all our need – our anxious fears, our burdens of guilt, our sorrow and shame.  In Jesus, God gives all, not just part, not even half, but everything – his very life on the cross, all for us and for our salvation. We don’t worship and serve a half-way God, but One who loves us literally unto death in order that we might have life in all its fullness (John 10:10). We worship and serve a God who doesn’t get you just halfway.

Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers in the Gospel lesson (Luke 17:11-19) reveals clearly the blessings God desires to pour out upon his people. And yet, there was only a ten percent return on Jesus’ investment in healing those lepers. Only one out of the ten – ten percent – returned to give thanks. So, did Jesus revoke his healing of the other nine because of their ingratitude? Nope – the blessing remained. Again, God doesn’t get you just halfway. All of the lepers cried out the same cry: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13). All of the lepers received the same gift of healing. Nothing halfway here, but full healing for all of them. That reveals the kind of God we worship and serve. Even in the face of thanklessness and ingratitude, our God still bestows gifts and blessings. Who are we in this account from Scripture? Are we among the nine who were healed and went on their merry way, or are we that one who returned to give thanks? This Thanksgiving holiday affords us the opportunity to return and give thanks to the Lord God; not because we have to, but because we want to. We are moved to return and give thanks in response to all that God in Christ has done, and continues to do, for us each and every day. We return to give thanks because we worship and serve a God who doesn’t get you just halfway.

On Thanksgiving Day, on every day, may our thanksgiving be transformed into thanksliving by our God who doesn’t get you just halfway. Amen.