The Giving of Thanks

Good morning everyone!

Thanksgiving has come and gone and many of us are now preparing for the biggest holiday of the year. But, as Thanksgiving flew on by, I started to really think if I understood what it meant to give thanks. What does it mean to honestly have a Godly sense of being thankful for what we have and to be thankful for the God that loves us.

Think about it... Thankful... for everything. Everything.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says "In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

By reading through that verse I pull out some observations.

The first of those is that giving thanks to God means you trust him. 100%. Trusting God means having faith that He is who He says He is. That's his will for us, right? We have to ground our faith in that fact that we are thankful for what he has done.

Giving thanks means taking a radically different view of the situations we face in life.

Now, the other day my wife and I were making pancakes for our family. We were talking about them since the night before because we had just purchased a bag of organic blueberries and this special Blueberry syrup made from the wild blueberries of Maine.

I know, I was impressed too..

But, they just didn't turn out the way we wanted them to. A little undercooked in the middle and burning on the outside. Needless to say, Saturday morning pancakes were a failure. We were upset. Frankly, we were kind of mad and started bickering about it. But, in that moment, I had to stop and think to myself, "Is this really the only thing in my life that I have to complain about?" So, I had to reflect on the situation and just stand in awe before God thanking Him for that moment. Thanking him for the all the blessings we have. Putting everything around me in perspective. Knowing that this was a moment that all of us experience from time to time. It's a situation that has now been thrown around and referred to as "A Pancake moment" around the house. Are you having a pancake moment?

Now, that's just a silly story about a rather minimal thing that happens to all of us, and it's easy to laugh about. But, not all moments in life are going to be pancake moments. That is when our faith and our trust in God can be tested.

But, it takes a radically different view of what it means to be thankful for all things.

When you are truly thankful to God, understanding he is in control, then you can live out his will for your life.

But, still, true thankfulness is a radically different thought process than most of us can begin to comprehend. It's more than just understanding that God is in control. I hear all the time, "Jesus is in control. It'll work out." I think throwing that statement out there is a cop out amongst Christians to not take responsibility for our own decisions. Or, we throw it out when things don't go our way or when we don't understand the outcome. "Well, don't worry, Jesus is in control."

Now, don't get me wrong, He is all sovereign, and in control of all things, I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is when things go wrong are you willing to look to God and NOT ask, "God, can you please help me get through this?"

God has already delivered us! He has won the victory over sin and over death. His will for your life may be more than just Him getting you through a situation.

Can you truly enter a situation you know you have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER and instead give Him thanks?

Yes. Thank God for and through the trials in your life. Radically different.

Remember, It says pretty clearly, "In ALL things GIVE THANKS..." Not, some things. Not when it makes sense, not when we like it, but in ALL things GIVE THANKS!

Why should we be giving thanks to God when hard times come? Because, Hard times will come, I promise. It is simply a matter of when! So, why? Why do we give thanks in ALL things?

Because God is with us. He is with us. Always... until the end.

Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 NKJV

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9 NKJV

Read those again. What is God telling us? I am with you, always!

Now, do we, as Christians, really understand these verses and God's will for our lives? He does have a plan for us and it is not one of doom and gloom. But, God never said life was going to be easy.

Look, God never leaves our side once we have opened our hearts to him! He loves us so much that he is with us. No matter how many times you have been abandoned by man, He is the one who stays. When you are in the deepest, darkest moments in you life, more alone than you ever thought possible, living, digging, scratching through the valleys that seem impossible to escape from, even if it means the moment of our own untimely, unnatural death is staring us right in the face... are we still able to stop and say, "Jesus... Thank you for being here with me through this. Thank you for never abandoning me when everyone else did. Thank you for not making this moment the end of my story."

Even in death, God will pull you up to the mountain tops of his heavenly kingdom, saying, 'Well done good and noble servant!"

And if death in that moment is not in His will for you, he will raise you up to the next mountain out of the valley and show you the majesty of His creation if you TRUST him and have FAITH in him so you can look upon Him again and say THANK YOU, LORD! Thank you for being with me through the trials, and carrying me out of the valley!

Do you get where I'm going here?

Radically different. Thankfulness. Unlike any you have ever expressed before.

When this new way of thinking about being thankful to God in all things began to hit home, it set me free in so many ways inside. No matter what you are facing, whether a Pancake Moment, or the grip of death itself, God is with you.

Never forget that.

And Thank God for that.