You would think that gratitude should be easy. To develop a spirit of thanksgiving to the God who made us should be a normal, daily attitude. And yet, circumstances tend to block our view of that thankful spirit.
We all face disappointment or disillusionment in life because life didn’t/hasn’t gone as we thought it should/could/would. But we also have a choice in difficult times to either see them as reasons to give into sadness or as times to lift up our eyes to the heavens with gratitude for the many blessings we’ve already experienced. Because no matter how hard a year might be, there is always something to be thankful for.
There is something that comes with realizing that our life here is just a breath, could end in a moment or last a century, that changes our perspective. Because honestly? Even a century is short in light of eternity. Maybe it’s respect for the time we have had in the past and have right now in this moment. Maybe it’s putting our hope in the future God has planned for those who love Him. And maybe it’s all three.
I was born into a Christian family, but that didn’t make us perfect. What family is? Memories flicker like the flames of a candle, good times, confusing times, laughter, tears. Fearful times, sad times, exciting times. What teen isn’t thirteen going on sixteen or sixteen going on twenty-one? The picture I see of that girl back then was of someone who was learning who I am and deciding who I wanted to be. Isn’t this true for all of us?
At some point in my life, as I was learning who God made me to be, I made a conscious decision to follow Jesus. Kids in school probably labeled me a “Jesus Freak” because I could get pretty bold when I talked about Him. I was also that girl who couldn’t do a cartwheel to save her life, wasn’t very athletic, kind of a shy bookworm. I would later realize that creatives tend to have melancholy personalities and feel deeply. Sometimes too deeply, and that can make us negative and sad.
I’ve been looking back at journals I kept over the years. Some are older, some newer. In them I prayed, often with those same emotions I had as a kid. I’m still trying to understand God’s ways, so my prayers are still a variety of gratitude when things are going well to frustration when God seems silent to my desperate pleas.
If we want to know God as He knows us, we’re going to wrestle with things. We’re going to struggle to understand the mystery that He is. We’re going to finally figure out that even in prayer, God cannot be controlled, and yet He wants us to pray in ways that might try to change His mind. (Moses is a prime example of such prayers.)
But this life is also a testing ground and a place where our faith grows and prepares us for the life that is to come, because whether we want to accept it or not, we will live on somewhere. Our bodies are not going to live forever as they are, but our spirits will. We are made for eternity, and as Scripture tells us, God has put eternity in our hearts. Ask yourself if you don’t sense it deep down? Even if you want to deny life after death, you know there is more to come.
If we want that future life to include God (and I do), it would do us well to spend time getting to know Him here. And in that knowing, we are going to come up against things we cannot understand. We will have questions that cannot be answered. There will be joy, for sure, but there will also be tragedy and sorrow. And in each of those moments we face, we get to determine our attitude. The way we choose to look at this new situation we face and can’t control.
Can I be thankful when things don’t go my way? Can I be thankful when everything I once knew is no longer that way? Can I be thankful during a crisis or when facing a storm head-on? Can I thank God ahead of time for what is yet to be? For prayers I don’t yet have answers to?
Philippians 4:4-7 tells us to “Always be full of joy in the Lord; I say it again, rejoice! Let everyone see that you are unselfish and considerate in all you do. Remember that the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.” (Living Bible, emphasis mine)
I’m really good at praying about everything. Silly as it may be, I pray for the really, really hard things, but I also pray for the lost car keys. To me, “everything” means everything. I don’t have a problem with asking. Or with telling God my needs. I have so many of them I often wonder when He is going to grow tired of my repeated requests.
It’s the “don’t forget to thank Him for His answers” part that I often leave out. What if I don’t have those answers yet? Thank Him anyway. Thank Him in advance. Remind Him of His promises and thank Him for making them.
It’s so so easy in this world to find ourselves defeated, depressed, disillusioned. We live in a really broken world. And if we think we can fix it on our own apart from God’s help, we’re deceiving ourselves. But if we recognize our desperate need for Him, and thank Him for loving us enough to care about those “everythings” we bring to Him, we can begin to build a true relationship with Him. We can walk with Him and talk with Him, and when we face that next big trial, we will have already been in step with Him, so it won’t throw us quite as hard as it might have before we learned to be grateful for everything He allows into our lives.
We do have a choice. We can practice gratitude and thank God in all circumstances—not necessarily for the circumstance, but in the circumstance because even then His love will never leave us. And that love is something, the one big thing that we can never lose. If we love Him as He loves us, He’s promised us that love forever.
~Happy Thanksgiving
#thanksgiving #prayer #gratitude #givethankstoGod #happythanksgiving2019
