Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  1 Thessalonians 5:18

Now if you are like me or should I say like I used to be, this sounds a little crazy.  I mean you certainly are not thankful when you lose a loved one.  You certainly are not thankful when you are under attack from the enemy.  You certainly are not thankful when you are experiencing hard times, right?

Well you should be and before you either get mad at me or think I’m just off my rocker, let me explain.  The Bible gives us very clear instructions for the best possible way to live our life.  This scripture passage does not say give thanks in the best of times or in the best of circumstances, it says “give thanks in ALL circumstances”.  So if we are going to be obedient then this is what we have to do.  Now don’t get me wrong here, it doesn’t mean that when a loved one dies we are not to mourn.  The Bible tells us there is a time and a season for everything and It tells us there is a time to mourn.  However, some people become angry when they lose a loved one and this is not good.  It does not benefit you to be angry.  Of course you won’t be thankful for the loss itself, but you could be thankful for the time that you had with your loved one.  The Bible tells us basically that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  When we come under attack from the enemy we can be thankful for the fact that this is making us stronger.  We can also be thankful for the protection and the armor that God provides when we come under attack.  When we go through hard times, we can thank God for his presence.

I am not telling you to do something that I have not done myself.  You see when my dad passed away, that was one of the hardest things I had been through up until that point in my life.  I missed my dad terribly and still do, but I was so grateful to God for my dad’s salvation that had happened just five years prior to his death.  I was so grateful for the 47 years I had been able to spend with him and I was so grateful for the type of dad that God had given me.  So even though I was mourning, I still had many things to be thankful for.

Last year when I came under full attack from the enemy on two different fronts, there were times when I just wanted to bury my head under a pillow and cry and times when I did just that.  But I quickly remembered that before I had my cry I needed to thank God.  I thanked God for His presence during this time.  I thanked God for everything He did during this time that helped my cause.  I thanked God in advance for working things out for my good as I knew he would do because the Bible tells us in Romans 8:28 that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

In both of these situations, I learned a very valuable lesson.  We have a choice.  Yep, there goes that whole free will thing.  Sometimes I wish God had just made us robots that just followed His will.  Life is so much easier when we do what He tells us to do, but we are not always smart enough to do that.  I learned that if I give everything to God and use a hands off approach, that He will take care of everything.   I learned that by staying close to Him through Bible reading and prayer that He will let me know what I need to do and other than that I should do nothing but pray.  I learned that He’s got this!  I also learned that when I am thankful for what is going on, even if it doesn’t seem so great at the time, that He gives me peace.  Yes, that wonderful peace that passes all understanding that the Bible talks about.  I guess thanking God in the bad times as well as the good is just another way of showing Him that we are faithful and we know that He is taking good care of us even in the hard times. I also learned that when I stop and thank God for the hard times that they seem to get a bit easier.  I guess this adds to that feeling of peace.  It makes things a little less scary.

I am not going to say that it is easy to give thanks in difficult circumstances, but I will say it gets much easier with practice.  The more I have learned to thank God as soon as a difficult situations arises, the more it becomes a habit.  It becomes a good habit that helps me a great deal.

It can help you, but you have to try it and you have to make it a habit.  My prayer for you today is that if you are facing difficult circumstances, that you find the strength to look for the good and even if you can’t possibly see any good, know that God is somehow going to work this out for your good and His glory.  Knowing this, you can get on your knees and thank Him for the work He is doing.

Ryan Stevenson wrote a song last year titled The Eye of the Storm. If you are going through a storm, I highly recommend that you listen to this awesome song and pay close attention to the lyrics.  The lyrics say “in the eye of the storm, you remain in control, in the middle of a war you guard my soul”.  So when you are in the eye of the storm, know that God is in control and be thankful for that.

Have a great weekend!