Happy Thanksgiving or Is It?
What is going on in your mind when you give thanks?
Let's take a look:
- you acknowledge that something good was done,
- you appreciate what was done,
- you are pleased,
- you feel cared for,
- you are content,
- you are expressing your positive feelings.
Imagine being able to still give thanks when everything in
the list above is just the opposite. i.e. something bad has happened, you are very disappointed,
you are very unhappy and feeling very negative. Giving thanks is the last thing
on your mind.
"... give thanks IN all circumstances, for this is God's will for
you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thess 5:18)
It does not say give thanks FOR all circumstances but IN
(or during) all circumstances.
This means that during tough times we should all still be thanking
God. When life is hard, things are going badly and everything seems too much to
bear, we should still be giving thanks to God.
Why? Because we
must remember that we ORIGINALLY put all of our problems in God's Hands and He
is actively working on them and that the resolutions will always be GOOD. No
matter what happens, God is still the same, He does not change, He still loves
us just as much as before and
He will never leave us.
Giving thanks is the expression of gratitude we give to God
(a) when we give Him the glory for the good around us and (b) when we trust Him
even if there is bad around us.
When things go right we praise God and when we are not sure
about our circumstances and we are upset, it is the voice of the Holy Spirit
that helps us to pray, “I thank you God that I can STILL trust in you, no
matter what."
"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do
not see. We live by faith not by sight." (Hebrews 11:1)
As Merlin Carothers
puts it in 'POWER IN PRAISE':
"So if GOD TELLS US He's working everything out for our
good and we see everything is going wrong, then our faith will grow when we
hold on firmly to God's Word (God does not lie) and thank Him for everything
that is happening, no matter how bad it looks."
We need to understand that these bad things are only steps
along the way to arrive at the final destination which will be something that
is good for us.
Let us pray:
Father, we place our lives in Your Hands. May Your will be
done, not ours. No matter what happens, we thank you, thank you, thank you. We
cannot wait to see the end result you have in store for us. We know it will be
good. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen