This week is Thanksgiving—a time we reflect on giving thanks. It’s easy to give thanks for those good things in life—a good home, a job, family, material blessings, and friends. But it’s not as easy to give thanks for those unwanted intruders into our lives—like pain, suffering, loss, disappointment. Are we to give thanks for those difficult things also? Yes. We are to give thanks in everything. God’s Word tells us to.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 – “In everything give thanks.”
Ephesians 5:20 – “Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”
Colossians 3:17 – “Whatever you do in word of deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, thank God for the gifts and precious blessings He has entrusted to you. But also thank God for those things in life that are stretching you – those things that are not exactly what you had prayed for, those situations that bring tears to your eyes.
Why? Because we know that God is sovereign and has a purpose for all things He allows into our lives.
As we give thanks to the Lord, for the good and the hard, let us remember the powerful words of Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Give thanks, knowing that God is at work in ways we may not understand now, but one day we will.
