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I was exhausted, my long day had finally come to an end and I was about to get into bed when my son comes up the stairs and says the basement’s flooded. I followed him back down the stairs and found water pouring out of our hot water heater, which had just been replaced a year prior. As my wife and the kids will attest, I was not very thankful in that circumstance! Especially as the big pile of junk on the basement floor that had accumulated over the past year was now soaked and had to be dried out or thrown away.

So does God really expect us to be thankful in all circumstances? Yes. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 follows the “Give thanks in all circumstances” with “for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” This is a command, not an option, and one that I too often fail to keep.

You see, our purpose in life is to know God and give Him glory. Failing to give thanks runs contrary to our purpose. In speaking of those upon whom the wrath of God is coming, Paul states in Romans 1:21 that

although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 

When we are unthankful, we are essentially saying that God is not truly good, and that He is not enough to sustain us. Our thinking becomes futile and darkened because we have taken our eyes off the Lord and focused on something else.

As Christians, our greatest reason for giving thanks is always God. We have the immense gift of God’s forgiveness through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross given to us because God loves us more that we can imagine (John 3:16). We have the great gifts of adoption into the family of God, and eternal life in Heaven. We get to know God and experience relationship with Him right now through prayer and the power of Scripture. Even more, as we grow in our knowledge of God our eyes begin to be opened to further see how every good thing (James 1:17) we enjoy has been given to us by our infinitely Good, Holy, Just, Powerful, and Wise God. Our Lord never changes. He never leaves us or forsakes us. He is the reason we can be thankful in all circumstances, because He is always greater than our circumstances.

Yet we have more to be thankful for. We have God’s promises which never fail. One of His great promises is found in Romans 8:28:

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

This means that we even have reason thank God for the difficulties He allows to come our way. For it is His plan to work life’s trials for good, for His glory and our good. This means that God had a purpose for my water heater problem, and he was ultimately using this difficulty for my good. That is why James 1: 2-3 says:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

God uses the refining action of pain and trials to reveal our wrong thinking, to teach us patience and perseverance, to force us to rely on God, and to make us more like Jesus.

I admit that facing trials with thankfulness is really hard. It seems the older I get, the demands and difficulties of my life grow exponentially. The issue of thankfulness seems to be the frequent battlefield on which many of the spiritual skirmishes in our lives are fought, but we can be thankful in all circumstance when we are living our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-20) and when we are abiding in Christ (John 15).

So have you been thankful recently?

In a message entitled Giving Thanks in Everything, the late John MacArthur called thankfulness one of the best gauges as to our spiritual condition, and he gave the following list of reasons we might be struggling to be thankful:

Doubt- we often don’t realize our lack of faith until our actions in the midst of difficulties show us

Selfishness- part my lack of thankfulness the night of the water heater incidence was selfishness; I just wanted to sleep.

Worldliness- loving things too much; I was also worried about the “stuff” in the basement.

Critical Spirit- I was probably a little short with my boys who were there helping me clean up the mess; I should have been thankful for their help.

Impatience- related to selfishness; it often happens when “my agenda” becomes most important and I forget that God is supposed to be in control.

Spiritual coldness/Apathy- usually happens when we have taken our eyes off God

Outright rebellion against God- when you are sinning, momentary pleasure quickly turns into misery.

I hope this Thanksgiving finds you thankful in whatever circumstance you are in.

This year I am thankful for hot water in the house! As it turns out, our water heater was covered under warranty, our plumber graciously came right out the next day and replaced the heater, and at least, for a while, we had a cleaner basement!