Giving Thanks
It is easy to give thanks for those good, often-taken-for-granted things in
life: a warm house, family and friends, yummy coffee.
But what about when life gets rough and we have a hard time even noticing those simple things to be grateful for? What about those times when we feel suffocated because of the weight of the burden we’re carrying? Or when life seems terribly unfair…and we feel like we’ve received the short end of the deal? Or when we want to cry a loud “Why Lord???” and hear a comforting answer that will make everything better again.
Can we thank God for those things too? Can we thank Him in the good times and in the hard?
The Bible tells us to. “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (1 Thess. 5:18)
I think God is pleased when we are intentionally thankful for the good things in life. After all, it is His will that we be thankful.
But I think He is even more glorified when we are thankful in those things that {we view} as bad or evil and would like to wish them into extinction. As we understand His hand sovereignly at work behind the scenes, He gives us grace to be thankful even in those things.
If thankfulness {in everything} were second-nature for us, there would be no need for God to command it to be present in the believer’s life. Not only is it a command, but this command is combined with a second description: it is the will of God. How simple does it have to be? We’re always talking about “the will of God.” Well, here is one of the clearest statements concerning His will: be thankful. Period.
That’s pretty cut-and-dried. Either we’re thankful or we’re not. We don’t need help being thankful for the good things. That’s pretty easy (once we remember to, that is.) It is in the hard situations where we need the extra motivation to be thankful: it is God’s will that we be thankful, that I be thankful. Even in this. “Lord help me to walk according to Your will and cultivate a heart of thankfulness for every gift from above. You have promised that You only give good gifts, so while this particular gift doesn’t seem very good, I know it is just because I’m looking at it from earth’s perspective and not from Your perfect plan. I won’t lie: It is hard to be thankful sometimes. But I do thank you that You know what You’re doing in this and that I can trust in it.”
Even as I write this for you to read, I’m preaching to myself. This has been the hardest year of my life. God has allowed tears and struggles, and more struggles and tears that I would much rather have gone through life without…. Yet God continues to remind me: “Be thankful. I want you to be thankful. It’s about you becoming more like your Savior. Trust me even in your pain.”
And so, like pretty much every other area in my life, giving thanks has been a work in progress.
But what about when life gets rough and we have a hard time even noticing those simple things to be grateful for? What about those times when we feel suffocated because of the weight of the burden we’re carrying? Or when life seems terribly unfair…and we feel like we’ve received the short end of the deal? Or when we want to cry a loud “Why Lord???” and hear a comforting answer that will make everything better again.
Can we thank God for those things too? Can we thank Him in the good times and in the hard?
The Bible tells us to. “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (1 Thess. 5:18)
I think God is pleased when we are intentionally thankful for the good things in life. After all, it is His will that we be thankful.
But I think He is even more glorified when we are thankful in those things that {we view} as bad or evil and would like to wish them into extinction. As we understand His hand sovereignly at work behind the scenes, He gives us grace to be thankful even in those things.
If thankfulness {in everything} were second-nature for us, there would be no need for God to command it to be present in the believer’s life. Not only is it a command, but this command is combined with a second description: it is the will of God. How simple does it have to be? We’re always talking about “the will of God.” Well, here is one of the clearest statements concerning His will: be thankful. Period.
That’s pretty cut-and-dried. Either we’re thankful or we’re not. We don’t need help being thankful for the good things. That’s pretty easy (once we remember to, that is.) It is in the hard situations where we need the extra motivation to be thankful: it is God’s will that we be thankful, that I be thankful. Even in this. “Lord help me to walk according to Your will and cultivate a heart of thankfulness for every gift from above. You have promised that You only give good gifts, so while this particular gift doesn’t seem very good, I know it is just because I’m looking at it from earth’s perspective and not from Your perfect plan. I won’t lie: It is hard to be thankful sometimes. But I do thank you that You know what You’re doing in this and that I can trust in it.”
Even as I write this for you to read, I’m preaching to myself. This has been the hardest year of my life. God has allowed tears and struggles, and more struggles and tears that I would much rather have gone through life without…. Yet God continues to remind me: “Be thankful. I want you to be thankful. It’s about you becoming more like your Savior. Trust me even in your pain.”
And so, like pretty much every other area in my life, giving thanks has been a work in progress.
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