Thankfulness is a trait characteristic of all cultures from all ages whether or not they know God personally. This is because God’s common grace invades everyone’s life to make them grateful. However, not everyone is thankful all the time. Usually people are grateful when good things happen to them, but when an event turns bad that’s when the gratitude attitude takes a vacation. This is not true in the believer’s life…at least it shouldn’t be. God’s children are thankful when the bad times are rolling, when the wheels fall off, when things aren’t exactly going our way, or when someone has sucked all the sweet off our sucker.

At the end of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians he pulled out his automatic gospel gun and just fired off a bunch of commands. One of them that’s gets right up into our faces and screams for us to practice in our world today is,

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).

As simple as this command is, it is equally difficult to practice. It is not easy to give thanks in a culture that is discontent at every turn. We live in a world that is not a happy one. People around us are not happy with their jobs, spouses, friends, vacations, church, or even their happy meal! We are a complaining society, and we are defined as odd and out of touch with reality if we aren’t griping about something.

Sometimes we need to change our circumstances, but usually that’s not what God is calling us to. He is calling us to change our attitude and press into Him more closely during harrowing times. All circumstances are under the control of our sovereign God. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens to God’s child that doesn’t first pass through His hands, and His hands are always gracious, kind and loving.

Instead of following the path of our complaining culture let’s just scrape the pickle off our happy meal hamburger and eat, thanking God that we have something to eat, teeth to chew, taste buds to enjoy, and a digestive system to process the food. Not everybody has those!

Grace & Peace,