Thankful in all circumstances...say what???

Now, "No brainer thankfulness is the easy part of thankfulness, now what about being thankful, in all circumstances? Here are some more things I have learned over the past few weeks.

To be thankful to God in all circumstances takes faith. If you consider this command, no matter what happens to you, as a Christian, we are to be thankful for it. Again, that's easier to do when God is blessing your life, answering your prayers and things are fine...but what happens when things go the opposite way? Say some stuggles, sickness, job loss, persecution, suffering or any number of calamities that can occur in this world? How can a Christian can still be thankful in these circumstances?.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would be thankful for sickness, or suffering, or any thing bad to happen to them. I have heard the answer comes from our verse in Thessalonians, it says "be thankful in all circumstances", not for all circumstances, now that makes a little more sense.

But still, how am I suppose to be thankful when bad things happen to me as a Christian? Well, it goes back to our dependency on God and trust in His goodness. The answer is because God has promised to work all things for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) We need to put our faith in the fact that we can be thankful because of God's promises combined with His faithfulness.

Many times in the scripture we are told that bad things are going to happen, Jesus said "in this world you will have trouble...but I leave you my peace". James 1:2 says "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance". God is so awesome that He even takes the worst that can happen to us and uses it for our good.

Consider some of the storys from the scripture. One of my favorites is Joseph in the old testament who was sold into slavery by his brothers, put into prison because he would not commit adultery with his bosses wife, abandoned by a guy he helped out but still through it all, was faithful to God and was the person who God made him to be to serve God's purpose in his generation. If you recall the story, God used everything bad that happened to Joseph to prepare him and put him in position to save God's people from starvation during the great famine in Eygpt during that time. In fact, when Joseph had the opportunity to take vengence on his brothers for doing evil to him, he told his brothers, "for what you meant for evil, God used for good." I really like Joseph's character. He had the right perspective and heart for sure. It would be enough to be thankful to God when He blesses us with good things but as my pastor once told us, sometimes God's greatest blessings come to us in packages we would prefer not to open.

I hope that some of these things I have shared with you will be some practical encouragement on being thankful to God and why it is important. I pray He blesses you and me and gives us the grace and strength to do be thankful in all circumstances and continue to teach us about true thankfulness to God so we can all practice this each and every moment of each and every day to and live with grateful hearts.

God bless and thanks be to God in and through our Lord Jesus Christ