CHAPLAIN’S PAGE
IN EVERTHING GIVE THANKS
As a young Christian I found it an easy matter to thank the Lord for the good things of life, a wonderful wife and children, a home, and sufficient to eat. It never occurred to me to give thanks for the more unpleasant things of life. Some years later I was rereading I Thessalonians 5:16-18, and I saw a great spiritual truth for the first time:
“Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”.
Had I misunderstood? In everything give thanks? Surely this was a mistranslation in the King James Bible. The obvious thing to do would be to check it out with some other translations.
The New English Bible renders it: “Give thanks whatever happens”, Moffatt says “Give thanks for everything”.
To make quite certain, I referred to a chain reference Bible and I found a text with a similar theme, Ephesians 5:20:
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”
This gave me much food for thought. For example: if I should wake up late, stub my toe on a chair leg, spill my coffee over my suit, dash out of the door, and the car won’t start! Are we really supposed to thank the Lord for that? The answer would appear to be “yes”, but what about something more serious? For example, you have just been informed by your doctor that you have a serious heart condition, and require immediate surgery. Are we expected to give thanks for news like that? As puzzling as these texts may appear, they cannot be glossed over and ignored. After thinking and praying about the problem, the answer came gradually as I grew in the faith. I am now able to appreciate the spiritual wisdom of these texts. At the same time, I am only too conscious of the fact that it is not an easy task to explain them to new Christians.
As I understand it, the Lord requires our total commitment in our Christian ministry. (See Revelation 3:15-16)
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth”.
This being so, we quickly learn to trust Him in all matters of our lives. It is a fact of life that the only way to learn is by our own experience. The more we get knocked about, the more we have to learn that the Lord is testing us for an ultimate purpose. This is made clear in Revelation 3:19:
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent”.
There are many who are always disgruntled Their outlook on life is expressed in such sayings as, “Why did this happen to me?” and “It’s not fair” The more mature way surely, is to accept those things that we cannot change, and benefit by them. There are of course, circumstances in our lives that we are able to change, and we should make every effort to do so. We must not sit back and say “The Lord will sort it out” I confess to knowing little about Psychology, but the following quotation from a book on the subject is revealing, “Those things that hurt, instruct. It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread, but actually to welcome problems. Most people attempt to avoid them”.
If we take this a stage further, and apply it to a Christian who is growing in the Faith, it should now be possible for them to thank the Lord that He has allowed them to come to that particular situation. In the event that this may appear to be a negative attitude, not so. Thanking the Lord does not mean that He will abandon us at that point, and leave us to wallow in our afflictions. What we have done is to admit that we are unable to deal with the situation in our own strength and wisdom. In effect we are saying “Lord, this thing is too big for me, I hand it over to you, that you will give me a portion of your wisdom to overcome it”.
By handing over that problem in this way, we learn to live a closer walk with Him. Some say “I don’t like troubling Him with my silly worries” This is an understandable reaction. However, if we stop to think about it, there is no limit to God’s power, His patience, His concern, and His love. These are infinite, and He will never say “go away”.
He deeply cares about every facet of our lives, for if He did not, He would not have sent His beloved Son to die at the hands of cruel men. So we see that it is His will that we take all of our problems to Him, and thank Him for them. When we see the way that He deals with them, we can say “I couldn’t have done that” If ever there was a man who had something to moan about, it was Job. In one day he lost his livestock, his servants, and his sons died when the house collapsed on them. Did he curse God and say “How dare you do that to me”? Nobody would have blamed him. His reaction is minutely recorded in Job 1:20-22:
“Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”
Notice, he worshipped, then said “The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord” And again “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly”
Surely this is a wonderful lesson to us all.
