Thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 The Message
Giving Thanks In When It is Hard
When tragedy and hardships come, as Christians, we are often surprised. We have an underlying expectation that God wants us to have a happy life and He will orchestrate everything in our path to make it happen. When this doesn’t happen, we struggle to understand what is happening, and the last thing on our minds is a posture of gratefulness.
But Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we are to always thank God, no matter what is happening in our lives. Thank God no matter what happens: We don’t give thanks for everything, but in everything. When we recognize God’s sovereign hand is in charge, and not blind fate or chance, we can trust Him and that we can be thankful even in hard things.
Real Thanksgiving is an everyday, good and bad, easy and hard, no matter what, posture of thanks for the blessings we have and hard things that make us grow. These are the things that help us realize how much we really need Him and bring us closer to Him. In the end, the hard things and painful experiences, the bitterness of the world and the failure of those we depend on more than Him teach us the greatest lesson of all. There are no greater blessings than those that open our eyes, lays bare our hearts before Him and strengthens our relationship to Him.
We are not thankful for the pain, loss, trials, but we can be thankful for the way they bring us closer to Him. In the midst of these we reach for Him fast and hard. We cling. We cry out. We can be thankful because He is there. We can be thankful that He is in control, even when it feels out of control.
It is a delicate balance to experience hard times and understand, and be grateful for, the bridge it builds that takes us straight to Him. We won’t feel grateful for what has happened, but we can feel grateful for our Heavenly Father who wants the best for us. We can trust Him and accept whatever His good is.
Be thankful in the valley.
Be thankful in the dessert.
Be thankful in the shattered dreams.
Be thankful in the loneliness.
Be thankful in the darkest night.
It goes against everything we feel to be grateful in times of sorrow and pain. Yet that is what we are called to do. Even in sorrow and pain we can have a posture of gratefulness for God – Who He is and what He has done – because no matter what our circumstances are, that does not change who He is. He is worthy of praise. He is good and His character and power are beyond what we can know. And - This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. It isn’t easy but we can do it because this is what God wants us to do. This is how He wants us to live. The testimony of our lives should be an example to the rest of the world because they will definitely be watching how we live out our faith, or not, in times of trials and heartache.
We can give thanks in hard times because of His faithfulness. Even in times of trial, we can count our blessings and remember what God has done. God allows us to go through hard times, but whatever happens to us in this life, we have a hope for something better. This life is not the end for us. We are to live for the life that is to come, not this one.
There are some horribly painful things in life that some may have to go through and giving thanks seems impossible. God understands our pain. He cares and He is patient with us. The most beautiful sound to Him has to be gratitude through the veil sorrow. If we can show Him we are thankful even in “this,” we are showing Him that we understand who He is and that who He is has nothing to do with what is happening in our lives. So we are not thankful for these things, but thankful in these things, because we are called to be thankful in all things – because He is always good.
