By Greg
Williams
By Greg
Williams
In Eugene Peterson's Message Bible, Psalm 100:4 says: "Enter with the password: Thank you!"
Coming into the presence of the living God begins with the attitude of thanksgiving. This concept has caused me to realize that the Thanksgiving season has much more gravity than the passing thoughts of turkey, pumpkin pie and football. In fact it sobers me to know that I am unable to appear before God unless the grateful, positive spirit of thanksgiving is alive in me. So, what is this all-important spirit of thanksgiving?
A good place to start is to consider what thankfulness is not. The opposite of thankfulness is more than simply being ungrateful. It is a complaining, griping spirit that is miserable and makes others miserable too. People who are ungrateful tend to show it, and instead of keeping it to themselves they infect others.
Fortunately, thankful people also stand out. A new friend of mine displayed a remarkable attitude of gratefulness. He is the principal of a newly formed charter school. He has the daunting task of not only starting a new school from scratch, but the added burden of a $100,000 remodeling project.
Currently, all 60 students meet in the gymnasium with partitions dividing the classes. As you can imagine, it gets loud and chaotic. When I asked him how he was coping with these circumstances, to my surprise he said it is all working out for the best. His view was that this struggle was exactly what they needed to bond them into a student body. If they could manage in this adversity, moving into individual classrooms would be a breeze. Only a thankful person can see things this way.
My friend was living out the trio of injunctions that Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
Notice it doesn't say to be joyful, to pray and give thanks only during pleasant circumstances, but in all circumstances. And neither does it view life as mere time and chance for the child of God. When a person is living within the will of the great sovereign of the universe, he sees God's hand in all situations.
This God is the same Father who sent his only Son to earth to die in our place. Therefore, the loving God permits us to go through good, bad and in-between circumstances so that Jesus can be shaped in us. It is like the words of a Wayne Watson song, "A rough and rocky road will lead you to a beautiful place."
Allow me to take these thoughts a step further. We live in a culture that links thankfulness to happy things. We seek happiness, comfort and pleasure above all else. The irony of the Christian life is that it is filled with trial, struggle and temptation.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:16, Paul purposefully used the expression "joyful," not "happiness." Happiness is related to happenings--we did this fun thing, but what's next? In essence, happiness is a bottomless hole that can never be filled no matter how much you do.
Joy, on the other hand, is a fruit of God's Spirit. It is an abiding sense of contentment that is not effected by circumstances. Joy can be found in an overcrowded gymnasium with 60 students or in nicely, remodeled individual classrooms.
Not only can joy abound in all circumstances, but giving thanks must be present too. The true spirit of thanksgiving is learning to live in the will of God with a contented and grateful heart, and giving him the glory.
As we examine our individual circumstances instead of asking why or what if, let's look for God's will and his obvious blessings. The fact that you are alive and reading this article is an obvious blessing from God--now you start counting the long list of other things.
I wish you and yours a joyful Thanksgiving!
Greg Williams pastors the Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Dillon, South Carolina, churches.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2000