Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits. Psalm 103:2

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

“In everything give thanks” this is a command that gives us pause. It causes our natural man, our flesh, to say “but” and start looking for loopholes. But before we start trying to prove why we might be the exception to the rule, let’s remember who gave this command to the church in Thessalonica. It was the Apostle Paul. The great thing is that he didn’t just flippantly say, “Come on guys rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances” we know from scripture that he actually lived according to this rule, and he didn’t do so in some plush ivory tower protected from the circumstances that would make giving thanks challenging. He lived a life of joy and thanksgiving in the midst of trial, hardship and suffering. 2 Corinthians 11 records the constant danger and difficulty he faced. Most of us will not know imprisonment, torture, shipwreck… but Paul did. Yet his letters are full of joy and thanksgiving! 

Acts 27 gives us insight into how he was able to maintain a heart of thanksgiving in the midst of difficulty. As Paul sailed as a prisoner of Rome to stand trial before Caesar Nero, a tempestuous headwind arose and the ship was caught in a great storm. Because they were “exceedingly tempest tossed” the sailors endeavored to lighten the ship even throwing the ships tackle overboard. Luke, the author of Acts recounts that, “when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small Tempest beat on us all hope that we would be saved was finally given up.” 

The storm was fierce, and things looked hopeless. 

But Paul stood in the midst of them and said, “Now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.”

 When he was done speaking, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all; and when he had broken it he began to eat. Then they were all encouraged, and also took food themselves.

Paul was thankful in the midst of the storm because 1.) he knew who His God was. 2.)He trusted the promises of God, and then 3.) allowed those promises to give him a big picture perspective of the storm.

Paul clung to the very specific promise that he would stand before Caesar, but that promise was just one set in the larger framework of promises that he was building his life on. We have been given the same beautiful “big picture” promises.

We all like the “big picture” promise of Romans 8:28, 

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God to those who are the called according to his purpose.”

God is working all things together for good. But what is the ultimate good? The next verse tells us.

 “for whom he knew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.”

The ultimate good that our Good Father is working all things together for, is our conformity to Christ, a remaking of the image of God in us. We were created in the image of God, made to have a relationship with Him but through our rebellion that image was marred and the relationship broken. The story could have ended there. But God…  Jesus the image of the invisible God came to restore us. Now, all of life is a process of recreation, a process of sanctification.

Motherhood is trying and testing. Sometimes it feels like all will be lost, and we will be swallowed up by the tempest of toddler tantrums, teenage drama, or the ache of watching our children stray in a prodigal season. The waves of overwhelm loneliness, fear, insecurity, anger, and anxiety, seem like they will be the death of us. But God… flips the script on all of this. These seasons of challenge and heartache are being worked together for good. When Joseph was reunited with his brothers who had sold him into slavery, he shares a similar “big picture” perspective to the one that sustained Paul through the storms of life, “But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.” Genesis 50:20

 Perhaps we like the idea of being remade in the image of Christ. He is good. He is beautiful. We love Him. But what if the means of our sanctification, the tools that the Master Artist uses to make us look like Jesus are suffering, storms, and trials? Often we long for the result but find ourselves complaining about the process. My hope is that the Lord will grant us a biblical view of complaining and help us, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to become women, mamas, marked by thankful hearts and joy in the midst of the refining fires of our sanctification.

A biblical view of complaining: 

Culturally, complaining is often viewed as the birthright of motherhood. 

How did you sleep? How was your week? What’s new with the kids? How’s potty training going with little Jonny? Do we view these questions as an opportunity to praise God or an invitation to sit down at the table of complaint? If we have become too comfortable with a complaining spirit, counting it as a friend or ally, we need to remember that we have an enemy who came to kill, steal and destroy. Complaint is one of his crafty tools. 

Hard truth: complaint is a mark of idolatry. It is a symptom of self exaltation. When I have an elevated view of self and a small view of God, I complain.

Complaint reveals a heart that believes it deserves better than what God has given. Complaint reveals a heart’s inward focus on self and pleasure, comfort and praise. Complaint reveals a heart dissatisfied with a multitudinous benefits that God has given. It reveals a heart that is more akin to Lucifer than to Christ, a heart that desires exaltation and attention, a heart that wants to be its own master and god. Complaint is entirely unlike Christ. He suffered, but he did not open up his mouth to complain or to curse God. He endured hardship and difficulty more than we can ever imagine yet He did not whine about it. He instead drank fully from the cup of suffering, with joy. He endured the cross, He faced separation from the Father for the joy set before Him. Hebrews 12:2

 Complaint reveals that I think I know better than God and I would do a better job than He does. Few of us would “curse God and die” as Job’s wife counseled because that seems too sacrilegious. Yet, we effectively go about our days, cursing Him with an attitude that says He is beholden to us to do as we wish and to make life what we think it should be. 

Complaint is an exaltation of self…. My will, my wisdom, my comfort, my plans.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul urges them to “do all things without complaining and disputing that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of our crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast the word of life. Philippians 2:12 - 16

He also reminds the Corinthians of Israel’s history and how they complained against the Lord, he says, “nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents, nor complain as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer” 1 Cor 10:9-10

The Old Testament is full of stories of God‘s faithfulness, of his deliverance and his miraculous work on behalf of his people, and yet is also marked by the complaint of his people.

Numbers 21 is such a story. It says, “the soul of the people became very discouraged, and the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness for there’s no food and no water and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the people of Israel died.

Later the people of Israel come to Moses and say, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.”

Here we see that the people recognize their complaining as sin. They recognize it as speaking against the Lord, but do we? 

Numbers 11:1 says “Now when the people complained it displeased the Lord for the Lord heard it and his anger was aroused.”

When we like Israel, complain, we are not looking to the Lord as we should instead, we are looking at ourselves or our circumstances. God‘s remedy, for an new generation of complaining Israelites was to judge them with fiery serpents, and then to offer a means of salvation that involved obedient, looking by faith. So too the remedy, for our complaining is looking by faith on the glorious finished work of Christ on the cross. We ALWAYS have a reason to rejoice and be thankful, because of Jesus and all that he has provided through His life, death and resurrection. 

Thanksgiving is…

Thanksgiving is contrary to self exaltation, it is an exaltation of God. It is an act of the will to fix our hearts and minds on the goodness and glory of the Lord. Thanksgiving aligns our hearts with reality, reminding us of His goodness, wisdom, love and of His active involvement in our lives.

**Thanksgiving in ALL THINGS is possible only when the source of our thanksgiving is something non-contingent and unwavering. If our thankfulness is rooted in circumstance, when the inevitable tempest comes and the ship of our life lurches in the swelling waves our thankfulness will falter and fade like morning dew. If our rejoicing is linked to our relationships all being peaceful and good, our angry toddler or teen will come crashing in like a rouge wave and upset the relational balance of our home and the song of thanksgiving will fade from our lips. Therefore, our gratitude and thanksgiving must find its source in Someone who is unchanging. The good news is, we ALWAYS have a reason to be thankful, because God who is the same yesterday, today and forever has declared and demonstrated His great love for us!

The thankful and abundant life is rooted not in circumstance but in who God is and what He has done on our behalf. 

When we focus on who He is and remember “all his benefits” as the psalm says we are better able to approach life with the upward gaze of thanksgiving.

* While complaint comes from an exaltation of self and is a form of cursing - thanksgiving is a recalibration of our hearts with truth and reality. Thanksgiving pulls back the veil and allows us to see the inner workings of the universe… that our Good Father is making all things new, that our Good Shepherd is holding all things together and is working them all together for our good.

Thanksgiving removes the muddled perspective of circumstance so we can catch a glimpse of the glory beyond and see the eternal "big picture" of the tapestry that God is weaving. We see the back side of the tapestry more often than not... the knots… the frayed strands of string the big blobs of color here and there and the areas of darkness where the color seems all lost. We see the mess. But God sees the tapestry that He has been weaving strand by strand, life by life from the beginning. He sees the work complete. He sees us positionally as already seated in the Heaven-lies dressed in the righteousness of Christ. Thanksgiving, by faith, allows us to catch a glimpse of reality from His perspective and to see the beauty and good He is creating.

The Hard things are a blessing! Give thanks in ALL THINGS!

We don’t normally complain about a great hair day or a delicious cup of coffee. We don’t whine about our baby sleeping through the night. No, we complain about the hard things.. 

We often fight against or run from difficulty and when it catches us, we complain. But what if we viewed difficulty as an ally? What if we received hard things as a gift? 

The only way to give thanks “in all things” is to see ALL THINGS through the lens of the gospel and God’s redemptive work in our lives.

Motherhood is a glorious opportunity for sanctification… an opportunity to be refined and purified. But our attitude and perspective about difficulty is vitally important. We can grumble about or hide from hard things, or by faith we can receive them as a gift and allow the blessing of difficulty to deepen our dependence on Jesus and sweeten our relationship with Him. 

What would happen if we allowed God to “flip the script” in our lives and give us a big picture perspective of the storms that we face as mothers? Would it not yield rejoicing and thanksgiving? 

Meditating on scripture = a tuning fork for our hearts.

If we are to be a thankful people we must be a people who meditate on what is true about God, and allow the truth to “tune” our hearts do we become instruments of His praise.

Psalm 19:14 says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”

 The word for acceptable in the original language means pleasure, delight, or favor. I often translate acceptable as “not bad”, but it is so much more than that! So much more beautiful! If our thoughts are acceptable in the sight of God, they are pleasing. They bring Him joy and delight.

When we meditate on who He has revealed Himself to be in scripture, we allow His truth to reorient our lives, to shape our thinking, to impact our emotions, to be born out in our actions and in doing so we bless His heart.

Scripture is the necessary tuning fork for our hearts that so easily fall out of tune with worry and complaint. Scripture gives content and context to our prayer life. It gives us content to mull over with Him and provides context that helps us to better understand our place in the world, our circumstances, and how our Father is at work through it all. What we think about will bear forth in the fruit of our lips. Our thinking informs our speaking. We cannot make much of God if we think little of Him. Conversely, if our thinking is consumed with thoughts of Him, the natural consequence is that our speaking will be full of His truth, marked by His praise, seasoned with Thanksgiving. The heart that meditates unceasing on His love, goodness and faithfulness, will soon find its voice ever employed in the declaration of His glory. 

Summation:

How do we give thanks in ALL THINGS?

• Recognize this is a command to be obeyed by faith. Do NOT wait for fluffy feeling. Paul and Silas weren’t comfortable in jail but they praised God in spite of their circumstances. Thankful hearts know who their God is and praise Him in the prison cell.
• Reject a complaining spirit.
• Recalibrate our hearts with truth. Look up, know who your God is just as Paul did and focus your heart on Him. 
• Remember, call to mind, “all His benefits”. Remember the finished work of Christ on the cross. You are redeemed, forgiven, adopted. This is reason to rejoice!
• Retune your heart to sing His grace by meditating on truth about His character and His redemptive work in your life.
• Reframe your circumstances with the perspective shaping promise that He is working ALL things together for your good.
• Receive difficulty as a gift, it is being used to conform you to the image of Jesus and deepen your intimacy with Him. “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.” - Spurgeon
• Rejoice always and give thanks in all things! 

Closing:

Let us ask the Lord to show us how He is “flipping the script” in our lives. By faith let us give thanks in ALL THINGS! He is working ALL things together for good! 

Are you in a season of rejoicing? Give thanks for indeed every good and perfect gift comes from Him.

Is the fire hot? Give thanks! He is refining you as gold. He is removing the dross of self-sufficiency and sin until the reflection of Jesus is clearly visible. Rejoice and declare with Job, “ But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Does it seem that there is no fruit on the vine? Give thanks! The Master Gardener will prune, support, water and tend the branches of your life and the lives of your children according to His infinite wisdom and love. He will cause you to bear good fruit according to the power of his might, all in due season. 

Are you weary? Are you anxious? Are you heavy laden? Give thanks! For the Creator of the universe, the True and the Living God cares for you! He rejoices over you with singing and will quiet you with His love.

“All of life, in every season, He is still God, we have a reason to sing, we have a reason to worship.”

Challenge: Read through the full chapter of Psalm 102 each day this week and allow the Lord to remind you who He is and what He has and is doing on your behalf!

Psalm 102:2-5

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits:

Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Verses To Meditate On:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Romans, 818

“As for me, I’ll see your face and righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awaken your likeness.” Psalm 17:15

“But he knows the way that I take when he assessed me I shall come forth as gold.” Job 23:10

“being confident confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6

Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning James 1:17

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matt 11:28

 The Christian life is intended to be one of abiding connection and dependence. This life is not and never was intended to be something we do alone or in our own strength. 

Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts, Zachariah 4:6

Isaiah 41:10 “So, do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

If you want to make your own thanksgiving tree you can click the buttons below for free printable files. To download the Blessing Detective activity, just click on the image below!