No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. - 1 Thessalonians 5:18
When the scriptures say, “This is God’s will for you,” we need have no doubts that what is being said is indeed God’s will for us!
Are you in the habit of saying thank you no matter what? Another version of the Bible says: “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NIV). Notice the verse doesn’t tell us that it’s God’s will for us to give thanks for all circumstances, but in all circumstances. Paul was writing to the Thessalonians, who were suffering difficult things in difficult times. Yet he told them to give thanks!
In the middle of a nightmare, we can give thanks that “weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). In the pain of bereavement, we can thank God for the comfort of his “rod” and “staff” in our “dark valley of death” (Psalm 23:4). When others reject us for our beliefs, we can thank God that he accepts us fully and unreservedly, and we can be thankful for friends who believe as we do. In all things there will be something for which we can praise and thank God. When we can’t praise him for what, in his sovereign will, he has allowed, we can praise him for who he is in the middle of it.
Dare we thank God for such things? Yes! No matter what happens, give thanks!
For Further Study: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-28
Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.
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