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What are you thankful for? Many countries and cultures have designated days set aside to express thanks for provision. For many, such gratitude is shown to a false god, or even to oneself. Often these days of thanksgiving occur around the time of the harvest. After all, it’s easy to give thanks when the fields are teeming with crops. It’s easy to give thanks when our lives are full—when the bank account is full, when the belly is full, when the womb is full.
But what about when life is hard and our hands are empty? What about when the news is dark and grim, and the future is bleak? That’s when it’s hard to give thanks, isn’t it?
The Apostle Paul instructed believers to give thanks in all things: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16–18). Whatever our circumstance, when life is easy and when it is hard, we are called to be thankful. And more, this thanksgiving is God’s will for us; it’s what He desires of us.
How? How do we give thanks in all things? How do we live a life of thanksgiving in a world that is fallen, where there is seemingly more sorrow and grief than joy and happiness?
To be clear, to “give thanks in all circumstances” doesn’t mean that we are saying that something is good that is in fact not good. Rather, we thank God because we know that He is at work in all things for our good. We know that He rules over the lost jobs, the broken relationships, and the sufferings we endure, for nothing happens outside His control. We know that He is a God of redemption, that He can make things that were once broken whole again. After all, we’ve seen His work in our own hearts. Through the power of the Spirit, God breathed new life into our spiritually dead hearts. He drew us to Himself and enabled us to see our need for Him. He made us alive in Christ; we are new creations. That’s why we trust that He will use all things—even the things that are not good—for our good and His glory.
In Philippians, Paul tells us to bring our requests to God—all those things we are anxious and worried about—wrapped in thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6). This means that when we pray about all the hard things, we give thanks as well. We ask the Lord to intervene, to help us in our circumstances, all the while giving thanks to Him for who He is and what He has done.
No matter what is happening in our lives or in the world around us, we know who our God is. He is a good God who does only what is good, as the psalmist writes: “You are good and do good” (Ps. 119:68). Let us give thanks to Him.
This is a life of thanksgiving.