give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
It is common to hear this scripture quoted around Thanksgiving. And it is a pretty difficult command to obey, especially the emphasis on all circumstances. There are a number of ways to understand this verse that avoid having to be thankful for difficult and painful circumstances. One is the call to be thankful in difficult circumstances rather than for difficult circumstances, focusing on how God is helping us to persevere or is using the trial to build our faith. But, I still think that it is difficult circumstances that often short circuit our attempts to practice gratitude.
In A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer: Discovering the Power of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Examen Jim Manney writes about suggesting to a friend, who is going through some hard times, that he think about things he could be grateful for.
“My friend listened, thanked me, and said he’d try to do that. But he also looked at me sadly and said, “Being grateful doesn’t feel real. It feels like putting on a pair of rose-colored glasses.”…. I can understand why my friend thought that my exhortations to be grateful came across as a deliberate effort to not see things as they really are.”
Manney then goes on to explain that on the contrary, practicing thankfulness has the power to get us in touch with the way things really are. I know that I tend to focus on areas in my life where I am lacking instead of areas where God has provided. I often take those provisions for granted while feeling keenly the areas of lack. If focusing on the positives in life is looking through rose colored glasses, then what is focusing on the negatives? Choosing to think about things to be grateful for might well be what I need to see things as they really are.
Manney goes on to say that , “Such gratitude is a window into the deepest truth about ourselves-that we are caught up in a relationship with a loving God who is generous beyond our imagining.” This is an attractive idea, but I can feel like difficult circumstances make it a struggle to really believe that I am in a relationship with a generous God. When I try to focus on things in my life (or my work) to be grateful for, those difficult circumstances end up clamoring too loudly that God is not being generous.
If I had a very wealthy friend who knew about my dire financial need, but did not provide any financial help, I would not consider that I was in a relationship with a loving friend who was generous. So how am I supposed to believe that I am in a relationship with a loving and generous God if there are multiple areas of my life where I am experiencing lack that He is not helping with?
Well, there is more to the story. What if that very wealthy friend had helped me in the past in an extraordinarily generous and sacrificial manner? Would I conclude that for some unknown reason, this person was no longer a loving and generous friend to me? Or would I conclude that this person has not changed and therefore must have a good reason for not helping in these instances? The latter is the more fair and reasonable conclusion.
And that, of course, is the situation we are in with God. Apart from whatever blessings and provisions we are able to identify in our lives, our faith in a loving and generous God is based on what Jesus did for us on the cross. That loving act met our deepest need when we had done nothing to deserve it. That is generousity. So we can quiet the clamoring voices of difficult circumstances by choosing to believe “that we are caught up in a relationship with a loving God who is generous beyond our imagining” who has a good reason for not providing where we are currently lacking. This is not denial or not seeing things as they really are. It is an appropriate appreciation for the meaning of the cross in our lives.
Happy (Cross fueled and Cross formed) Thanksgiving to you and yours!
I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.