I just wanted to extend thanks to you all for your love and friendship. I am grateful for every moment shared with each of you. You are all dearly appreciated.
Living in these turbulent times, I wonder just how do I “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18).[1] War with Israel and Hamas. Fighting in the Ukraine against Russian forces persist. Many other conflicts are happening daily. If brothers and sisters fighting against one another is not enough, I still find myself praying for sick friends and family, mourning with those processing their grief over their lost loved ones, and just trying to get by. Nonetheless, I say there is always a place for thanksgiving.
Now we do not give thanks for every circumstance, especially the unpleasant ones. Rather, we always give thanks within every circumstance. Even in the darkest place the light of Christ shines on. God is with us through all the mess.
God is mindful of our sorrows and needs. Thus, the psalmist declares:
The Lord builds up Jerusalem
he gathers the outcasts of Israel
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the humble;
he casts the wicked to the ground
(Psa. 147:2-6).
God has got us in His hands, so we have every reason to hope for the best. We may be traversing the valley of the shadow of death, but He is with us through and through.
God even flames of suffering to purify us just like the fire purifies the silver from the dross. “All that is of human fashioning is lost in the molting-pot” says Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Were you ever in the meltingpot, dear friends? I have been there, and my sermons with me, and my frames and feelings, and all my good works. They seemed to quite fill the pot till the fire burned up, and then I looked to see what there was unconsumed; and if it had not been that I had a simple faith in my Lord Jesus Christ, I am afraid I should not have found anything left.”[2]
God permits afflictions because they develop within us glorious virtues that could never been gained any other way (Rm. 5:1-6; 1 Pet. 4:12-13; Jas. 1:2-4).
The darkest moment ever was the crucifixion of the Son of God, yet resurrection came, and the redemption of multitudes upon multitudes of lost happened. Darkness was defeated by the Light. Moreover, we know that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).
Thanks be to God our Heavenly Father, to Christ the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, the three in one.
Happy Thanksgiving!
— WGN
Notes:
[1] All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).
[2] “Spurgeon.org, “God’s People Melted and Tried,” https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/gods-people-melted-and-tried/#flipbook/
Love Truth Blog 