by Amanda Baker
At this time of the year, we begin looking back to what we are supposed to be thankful for. I was reminded just a few weeks ago of just how important this attitude of thanksgiving really is for us as Christians. I was reading a short article dealing with different kinds of prayer, and my attention was directed to prayer of thanksgiving. The article used I Thessalonians 5:18 as the text.
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Having been saved for over thirty years, I know that I have read this verse many, many times. But this time, the Lord struck me with this thought. Thankfulness does not depend on favorable circumstances. I am commanded to be thankful in EVERYTHING! That is a tall order to follow. Sometimes when we look at the circumstances in our lives, we wonder what God is doing, and we bypass our thanksgiving in prayer because our circumstances don’t seem to lend themselves to an attitude of thanksgiving. The author of this article made the statement that instead of bypassing the thanksgiving we need to pray something like this: “Lord, I don’t understand everything you are doing in my life, but I trust you and am thankful that you are still working behind the scenes even though I can’t really see what you are doing right now. Thank you that you have not forgotten me.”
I know we will all spend some time in the next few weeks sitting around the table sharing thoughts of thanksgiving, but may we never forget that part of God’s will for us is to be thankful in every situation even when we don’t understand it.