Thanking God in Everything, Thanks in Hardship

Thanks in Hardship

Thanking God in everything is to thank Him in hardship. Today I wanted to give you an example of giving thanks for something unpleasant in my life. This is something that had caused me much pain and added stress. My initial response was to grit my teeth and pull up my big boy pants to deal with it. I got to work fixing what someone maliciously destroyed. It cost us thousands of dollars and would cost us thousands more to fix and require months of work to resolve. I admit openly my response wasn’t thanks. I wasn’t happy, much less grateful. What I did was I just sucked it up and went to work.

Thanking God in Everything Even When…

Now was this the correct response? Not if you read my last post. I am God’s, so this situation has to be God’s blessing. But I unfortunately prevented that blessing by refusing to be grateful by thanking God in everything. My God is sovereign and He allowed this so it was intended to bless me. I just wasn’t experiencing the blessing because of my ingratitude.

Years had gone by, with me still grinding my teeth and trying to push through to fix it. Yep, I worked to fix rather than putting the effort in to thank. But then my Holy Spirit, so beautifully gracious and amazingly loving spoke to me. He came to me one night when I was fixing dinner and said, “Thank ME.” Oh, I had missed it and prevented the blessing from flowing to me. But the light was bright and I saw. I saw it was all-inclusive, not an isolated event. This is about ALL of my life not just this one circumstance. Thanking God in everything is a lifestyle.

I spoke about this in a past podcast. In it I gave His exact words. They were loving, corrective, encouraging and edifying. And I saw! In the way only He can do, He exploded it into all of Life. He requires us in everything to give thanks and honor Him as God because He can use everything to bless us. Whoa! Wait, you mean this thing that cost us money, wasted much time and caused great pain is my blessing? Yes, my thanks transforms everything through a transfer of ownership. Thanks gives it back to God to be God, while ingratitude separates me from God.

Thanking God in Everything – Scripture

All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 4:15 NIV

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:11 NIV

For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:4-5 NIV

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT