“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Apostle Paul
I was cooler than John Cusack in my 1984 sun bleached Blue Pontiac Sunbird. The hot summer rains made the steamy concrete slick like ice. As I hit the brakes for a sudden stop, I suddenly hit the back of the car in front of me. Who hit the car in front of them, who hit the car…well you get my point. I had caused a short stack like pancakes at the IHOP.
After my only second time in the back of a cop car combined with the panic of “my mom was going to kill me”, my young faith filled memory recalled the words of the Apostle Paul’s to be thankful in “all circumstances”. So as I soaked my soreness away in the tub I simply thanked God for sparing my life.
The simplicity of sixteen has passed and “circumstances” in my life have continued to come. The crash of youth was easy to be thankful in. I was able to drive my car home. I was still alive. No one was majorly hurt. It was easy to find thanks in the chaos.
But not every chaos is so clean cut. Chaos comes in cancer, divorce, the loss of a child. Circumstances mount in a job loss, division with family members and facing trials that we never signed up for. Which begs the question: “how can you be thankful in the middle of the mess?”
I think “thanks” comes in two parts: thankful in it and thankful for it.
The first is not so complicated. Being thankful in the midst of the chaos is not overly complex because we tend to find things to be thankful for outside of the situation. The divorcee says: “thank you for the wonderful kids from the marriage.” The cancer patient says: “thank you for another day to see the sunrise.” The stressed out parent says: “thank you we have enough to eat and a roof over our head.”
Being thankful in all circumstances is not quite as challenging as being thankful for the circumstance. Honestly, who says “thank you for the worst possible pain I have ever experienced”?
No. One.
As Paul points out, the will of Christ is that we be thankful in “all” circumstances. What most of us struggle with is our “all”. Your “all” and my “all” are not the same at all. In truth, most of us keep our “alls” pretty well hidden. They are the tucked away termites that often are eating away at the structures of our lives. Most people never reveal their crumbling many times until after the house is rebuilt.
But we are challenged in these terrible moments to be thankful. The greatest challenge is to find thanksgiving for them.
I don’t have the answers to why we face the storms. But often the perspective we take is what creates thanksgiving. In the worst of life moments, we often find the best of ourselves. We find faith we didn’t know we had. We find prayers we weren’t sure we could pray. We find God closer than we ever imagined.
While it is ridiculous to invite chaos into life, it is necessary to be thankful for it. For it is is the worst of life’s moments we are to be most thankful for the God that reminds us “in all circumstances” give thanks.
