First United Lutheran Church Online Community - A Creative Christian Community in the Heart of San Francisco

A Creative Christian Community in the Heart of San Francisco

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What do you do when it is difficult to see the blessing?

In Everything Give Thanks;
For This Is God's Will For You In Christ Jesus.

–1 Thessalonians 5:18 nasb

In everything give thanks. In everything give thanks. Everything? Yeah, right...like that’s going to happen. Was St. Paul insane when he wrote that? It’s easy to give thanks for all of the good things God grants us. These are the things most of us will be thinking about on Thanksgiving Day. People will gather with family and friends all over the country, have a big meal, and give thanks to whatever or whomever they think is the force behind their good fortune. But what do you do when it is hard to see the blessing in the midst of the tragedy?

In everything give thanks. I do not know why, but this one principle is met with the most stiff-necked resistance of anything else I have found written in Scripture. And I don’t mean that it is resisted by the unsaved, by lost souls who have no relationship with God. I mean that this principle, this simple statement of God’s will for us, is met with more resistance than anything else I know of in Scripture by born-again, church-going, Bible-believing, heaven-bound, God-fearing Christians.

To be sure, everybody says that they believe they should give thanks in all things, even the bad things, but then they try to change what that means. They say, “Of course, you should always count your blessings, even when times are hard.” They say, “You can always find something to be thankful for.” But they hold fast to the absolute rejection of the idea that they should give thanks for the bad things, too.

Often in the midst of tragedy, there is some ray of hope that allows us to be thankful, like when you totally destroy your car in an accident but no one is seriously hurt. Certainly we can be thankful for that. There is something very provocative about a faith that allows one to see the blessing in the midst of tragedy. It means that one’s focus is more on what God is doing for him or her than it is on what has gone wrong.

But what if the tragedy outweighs the blessing? It’s easy to give thanks when the car is wrecked, but you are not. You and your passengers are worth far more than the car. What if two people died and you lived, then what? How does one give thanks then? How does a parent give thanks when a child dies? How does a young man give thanks when, after just over a year of marriage, his wife dies, having battled cancer the entire eighteen months? How does a city give thanks when airplanes crash into buildings and leave more than 2,000 dead? How do you give thanks when you are sitting on a bench in an African hospital praying with a 12-year-old boy who is homeless, has AIDS, and is so malnourished that you can count his vertebrae through the thick jacket on his back as you place a hand on him while you pray?

There are some who try to come to terms with the idea of actually giving thanks for the bad things by rationalizing how they only seem like bad things, but are really blessings in disguise. (As one Christian comedian says: “Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I’d run around naked!”) These people like to cite Romans 8: 28. That’s the verse that tells us that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to God’s purpose. And to an extent, these people are right. But notice that this verse talks about those who are “called” according to God’s purpose. Christ told us that “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). It is worth noting here that everyone is called—it is not God’s will that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9)—and that is God's purpose.

How did it work for their personal good when the apostles were murdered in such untimely and hideous ways? How even might it work for the personal good of a parent to lose a child? What earthly blessing would you trade your child’s life for? The point is this: Indeed, nothing happens to a single one of God’s children that God doesn’t allow, but it is vanity to think that everything that happens is for our own earthly, physical sake!

Today, when attempts to deceive people into believing that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, they are quickly quieted by the fact that a dozen men faced horrible, gruesome deaths—deaths that they could have easily avoided if only they had denied Christ’s resurrection. But the apostles chose to die, painfully and gruesomely, instead. No one person, much less twelve, will die for a lie, and certainly not a decades old lie. Even more so, not when recanting the lie would both spare their lives and be without cost. Do you see? These things happened; these people died, not for their own blessing but for ours, and for the generations of people who have been called since. In that light, we can easily see how even these horrid fates worked together for good for the called according to God’s purpose (which is the salvation of all).

Whenever we gather for worship, we gather in order to worship God for who God is and for what God has done. We worship for God's character just as much as for the amazing things God does. Giving thanks in hard situations must follow that same wisdom. Even if we find it hard or impossible to thank God for some specific thing in our lives, we can still give thanks for who God is. Paul did not say to thank God “for” every circumstance, but “in” every circumstance. The distinction is crucial. It means that even when you can’t find anything about the circumstance to be thankful for, you can and must still thank God for being sovereign. You can still be thankful for God's love and mercy, even in a time when it feels so distant. You can still trust and thank God for who God is, even when it doesn't seem to make any sense, is painful, and leaves you bewildered.

So, we shouldn’t look for some hidden blessing in every situation, but we should just give thanks. God never commanded that we feel grateful, and we should certainly not try and lie to God by pretending that we are. It would be very silly for God to command us to be grateful for those things that cause so much pain. No one could be grateful for such things. God is not looking for our gratitude, but our obedience; obedience that leads to fellowship with God. God wants a relationship with us that is not just a “gimme, gimme” attitude, but a genuine expression of love between God and God's child.

This is God’s will for us, a loving relationship with God. Giving thanks, even for and during the worst times of our earthly lives, isn’t a means of finding a silver lining. Sometimes there is no silver lining this side of heaven. But God still wants us to obey and to trust. Giving thanks in all things, even and especially the terrible things, is not an act of gratitude, but an act of love, an act of trust, and a statement of faith.

Please join us on Tuesday, December 1 as we focus on this dreadful pandemic,
and how it has affected so many millions of people around the world. Get map & directions to PLTS at http://plts.notlong.com.