In everything be thankful

It was a struggle to put words on the paper when God laid this on my heart.  At the moment, it felt like so many things were going wrong or at a complete standstill.  But the words echoed from my spirit. “In everything be thankful”.

So I asked myself, what is thankfulness?  The Cambridge dictionary defines thankfulness as “the feeling of being happy or grateful because of something”.  So then the question became was what was “the something” I had to be happy and grateful for?  I then noticed that when the focus changed from my present situation to the question at hand, an attitude of gratitude began to emerge.

The concept may seem simple. So simple that it almost becomes a cliche and therefore it is one of the things we need a constant reminder of.  How to be grateful in the midst of everything? We are happy to list all the things we are thankful for when life is going well.  However, when we are knocked off our feet, or depression and sadness set in, we quickly forget. 

The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”.  This means in everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, we are to give thanks to God.  We love to quote Romans 8:28, which tells us that God works all things for our good. Yet, we don’t want to experience “all things”, just the “good things”. We are also quick to say that God is the God of the mountain tops as well as the valleys, but when we are in the valley we quickly forget that God is God.  

Re- Couragement

So here is some re-couragement for you today.  Even though we often forget to be thankful, God is still faithful and forgiving.  His hand of mercy is always on us.  Even during the bad times, God promised us in His word that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8).

So, let us take a moment to pause and ask ourselves what are those things we have to be thankful for.  The challenge is to list at least ten things you can be thankful for.  Then, give God all the praise despite your current situation and watch and see how God turns it all around. 

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