One and the Same

11.28.13

1 Thessalonians 1.2-3 2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. (ESV)

Thanksgiving Day is of course, the last hope of sanity before the beginning of the Christmas Buying Season (US). So, today, according to American cultural custom, we’re to load up on food, watch some football on TV and be somewhat thankful for all the stuff we can think of that we’re to be thankful for: wives, children, grand-children, jobs, cars, girlfriends, boyfriends, insurance, possession, positions, food, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Thanksgiving Day is the annual American cultural reminder to be thankful (compared to the other 364 in which we’re somewhat ungrateful.)

An old saint once said, “…If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you.” Many are thankful today for the ‘good’ things in their lives. I wonder how thankful they are for the ‘bad’ things in their lives.

I’ve been smacked around lately (I blame it on my culture and Facebook) for my lack of thanksgiving in general: it is not my normal routine to be oft thankful for very much of what happens in my daily life. I pretty much just bump along the bottom feeling fairly fine.

However, there is a weight and a duty and a lifestyle beckoning that says: I am not in charge of anything in life except my attitude and my gratitude. Whatever God “does” in my life is His doing in wisdom and infinite love, so that I may attain to the culture in Heaven where earthly things don’t matter; where the only thing that matters is eternal fellowship with God (in all of His expressions) forever.

You see, God is in charge of my life; the whole thang ding. God is in charge of my moments – He has planned and executed them all in order that I may be completely free from the all cultures of earth and readied for the only culture of eternity. And the key to that freedom is thankfulness in all things at all times. In which I am very much in arrears …

Paul thanked God for the believers in Thessalonica because of this: their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their lives weren’t built around anything else. Mine shouldn’t be either. They did all this despite severe persecution and hardship – God orchestrated their every moment so they would be eternally free of whatever on earth was trying to rob them of Him. And, I too am to thank God for all of the good, the bad, and the ugly in my life because in God’s book, they are all one and the same.

My Father, I am thankful for it all today, but may I not forget to be more thankful tomorrow and the next and the next and the next until that day I am readied for Heaven’s culture, and fellowship in Your presence forever – Amen.