The Will of God is to Give thanks in Every thing

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1Th 5:18 

Are we ungrateful? Probably we don’t know. ‘Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults’ cried the psalmist. And probably once in a while we would all benefit immensely from such a prayer. A young rich ruler went to Jesus one day desiring to know what he should do to earn eternal life. He had, according to his testimony, been perfect since childhood. But Jesus told him the truth. And the truth made the rich young ruler very sad. He had a secret fault he hardly knew anything about. And it was that which turned his day into a night suddenly. But truth shouldn’t leave us sad. It should rather leave us enlightened, changed and happy. For it is only then that we can be said to be truly free.

The young rich ruler had a ‘secret fault’ he didn’t know he possessed. And so we too may be pretty ungrateful in our everyday life but we don’t even know it. So what do you see in that brief second of revelation which God sends to us once in a while? And how does it leave you feeling, light or heavy? It came to Peter once. But it made him cry instead, ‘Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’ The prodigal had been born greedy and ungrateful (like all of us) but he didn’t know it. But thank God the prodigal came to himself, and he chose the way of salvation and not sorrow. He went back to his father and this time he didn’t even want to be called his son – but a servant. Salvation always comes quickly on the heels of true repentance. It is sorrowful yes, but it is a sorrow which leads to salvation. Self-hatred may not always be viewed through negative lenses; it may actually be a prerequisite to a positive change in one’s life, a sort of coming to oneself, or true repentance. Because it wasn’t until the prodigal was truly sorrowful that he saw clearly what a greedy and ingratitude lout he had always been. God help us not to run away from that kind of cleansing sorrow when he sends it our way.

Being thankful is pretty easy when something big has happened, like a sudden windfall. But being thankful in the smallest things of everyday life is rare. It is a secret fault all of us possess, and the sad news is that we hardly know we possess it. The great events are rare. But it is in the smallness of things that life really moves. Let us therefore not despise the day of small things. They build a habit, and a habit builds consistency, and consistency makes the flowers to bloom even in winter. It makes the music sound aloud even in prison. And consistency can make a Spafford to sing ‘It is well with my soul’ even in the midst of the heaviest grief. The redemption story of children of Israel from Egypt was not only about their character but ours as well. God performed clear miracles before their eyes, but they still went ahead to make a god of their own. Their ingratitude killed them, but it is probable they didn’t even see it that way. But of course the cross is the height of our ingratitude. We hanged Christ on it for his tireless effort to save us… But even after a clear demonstration of his resurrection power ‘Who hath believed our report?’

The chief effect of ‘secret faults’ like ingratitude, is that they slow us down in our spiritual progress. We may even recognize them, but we take them lightly because they are small. But the growth of weeds in a farm usually starts small, in one scattered patch or two, and if it is left unchecked one day the farmer will wake up to find his entire crop swallowed and lost to the weeds. And so too ‘secret faults’ have that potential to cause havoc if left unchecked. A holy life can soon get lost to the weeds of the world. The apostle Peter writing on godliness, virtue and divine nature says, ‘But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall’ (2Pet 1:9-10). And we shall never really know ourselves until we first know our God. ‘Search me, O God,’ cried the psalmist, ‘and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting’ (Psa 139:23-24). Because it is only then I can rest comfortably in the knowledge that ‘I am known’.

Why God’s Will is that we Should be Content with our Daily Bread

Give us this day our daily bread. Mat 6:11  

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 1Ti 6:6 

It is for our own happiness. There is only one way in which one can rejoice always and again rejoice. And that is by being content always in whatever circumstances. But we know that it is not easy. It can be very easy when one is rich, but it is not so when one is very poor. It is very easy when one is in love, but it is not so when one has been rejected. It is easy in summer. It is not so in winter.

But though it might not be humanly possible to be always content, yet the benefits of practicing that virtue are immense (and paradoxically) will lead to the greatest happiness in one’s life. For if one steals, one will be caught, and sent to jail, and that will be the beginning of a hard life. If one commits adultery, the end of it will always be sorrow and death. But to know that is easy. It is how to do which is the hardest part, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do’ (Rom 7:18-19).  And that is the power of sin. It always wrecks life in the end. But Christ died so that the sting of sin might be removed once and for all. And it is only on that basis that one can fully grasp the meaning of Christian contentment. We celebrate it not because it has made life easy, but because of the person of Christ.

God might have cared only for the obedient Christian in this life, and to have left the sinner to perish in his sin. But he didn’t do that. He came after the one lost sheep. He left the ninety nine good ones in heaven to come and look for the only one which got lost, me. And it is that knowledge which makes us to be contented. It is that mysterious love which is beyond human comprehension and which makes us to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and to endure all things (1Co 13:7). It is because of him. His coming down on earth for only me, his suffering and dying on the cross that my sins might be forgiven… I deserved death, but he ransomed me from it, and he paid my whole debt by his own blood, for free! So what can separate me from that amazing love? Is it sickness, is it death? Is it poverty? No, nothing. Now I look at my past and count everything as dung (Php 3:8). And that is how I can be content under whatever circumstances. For what have I suffered which he didn’t? And what have I gained which he didn’t freely give? This is how the regenerate person perceives contentment.

But not so the unregenerate. He perceives that the whole meaning of life is to be happy at all costs. So he puts all his life and energy towards achieving that end. But then he has not reckoned with the power of sin. He wishes to operate like a machine, laying down good plans and knowing all the right buttons to press. But he is usually only as far from achieving happiness as when he first began. He thought, like Solomon, that it might be in the acquisition of things, but they have only made his life miserable. He thought it would be in the satisfying of the demands of the flesh, but he has only succeeded in tying his life in knots. And because he is only human and not a machine, his health crashes, and with that, his whole life. It loses meaning. And he begins to pine for death as an antidote. In fact death assumes the whole meaning of life, a sheer absurdity. His descent into nihilism happens without his knowledge: What does anything matter? Everything else which happens to him after that (assuming his God ‘died’ a long time with Nietzsche) only adds fuel to the absurdity of his life. And having become so alienated with himself how can such a person ever find contentment in this life?

But thanks be to God! He finds him (if he responds to his call), rescues him from himself, and gives him a heart of ‘flesh and not stone’. And it is from that ash that God makes a new creature. And it is only then for the first time in his life that he understands the meaning of life (Ecc 12:13-14). How on earth then can such a person ever fall again into the wild trap of discontentment in this life? He can’t. Because he has God, and having God, he has everything! O merciful God! Unharden our hearts that we might respond to you only as our measure of true contentment in this life!

God’s Will is that we Should Endure all things and Keep Faith up to the End

And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me. Gen 42:36  

Life abhors a vacuum. We hate to stand still doing nothing. But we come alive when we are doing something, when we feel there is air and life around us, when we see people on the road, when there is a place to call home, when there is laughter outside and when there is work within. These things give meaning to life. But then something happens. And the rhythm of what we knew as life snaps.

The rhythm of the life of Jacob had broken down many times before. But God had always been there for him to mend the broken parts, but Jacob had forgotten. And upheavals make us do that. We forget. But David too had despaired several times in his pilgrimage. At one time he was so certain he was going to die at Saul’s hand. He forgot God had anointed him to be ruler over Israel. Briefly Elijah forgot Mt. Carmel as he screamed across the desert that Jezebel was about to kill him. John sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was really the one, or whether they should look for another. Where had their faith gone?

You had been certain once that you were doing the perfect will of God. But now doubts assuage you. Things have happened. The hearthstone has gone cold. And ‘all these things are against me’. Don’t be hasty to pass judgment upon yourself. Even more don’t be hasty to pass judgment on God. Wait until the water has calmed in the pond because it is only then that you can see the depth clearly. That was the error of Jacob in passing judgment upon himself. It was the error of David, and many other people who believed God.

Some have supposed this is their end. Few stop to think it might be the beginning of a new thing, and a perhaps a better life afterwards. The time comes when belief looks impossible. But at such times faith says believe more, and act like Abraham 'who against hope believed in hope'. May we never be counted with the ones who staggered at the promise of God through unbelief, but rather let us be ‘strong in faith, giving glory to God.’ Let us remain ‘fully persuaded’ that what he has promised, he is able also to perform (Rom 4:20-21).

Don’t crucify yourself. Don’t loathe yourself. You are human and it is why you are feeling like that. God understands. And he’s glorified when we run to him for help, because he gives it. He is a strong tower, the righteous run to him and they are safe. The Lord is my light and my salvation, who shall I be afraid of?

There is one who knows the end from the beginning, and the story of our own life is still developing. What God begins he finishes, and the Bible story lives as a testimony to this day. We are not alone. Hasn’t he said, ‘I shall not leave you comfortless’? Yes sometimes our eyes can be so cast down looking down at the waves… until we forget to look up at him. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.’ Step outside for a while tonight and just stare at the starlit blue sky. His voice is everywhere. Shut the silence for a while and just listen. ‘Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard’ (Psa 19:1-3). 

Please God don’t let our fears and our worries so seize us at this present time, until like Jacob, we fail to see our salvation coming! ‘And it came to pass’…what a heading for a testimony! So ‘[w]ho shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:35-39). And may we be able to believe that always, O God!

The Will of God is that we Should see Him in Everything, including in our Depressions

But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD. And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Jon 2:9-10 

One great but silent theme of the book of Jonah is the Sovereignty of God. He is not the God of Israel (or Jonah) alone but the God of the whole world. He knows the number of hairs on every one’s head and no sparrow can fall to the ground without his knowledge (Mat. 10:29-30). It may annoy but we are here at God’s pleasure and not at our own (Ps 115:3; Rev 4:11).  

Chapter two of the book of Jonah is very short. But it is reads like a depression manual. Jonah cried to God ‘out of the belly of hell’ – and God heard him. But Jonah understood where his ‘depression’ was coming from. And if we would be brutally honest with ourselves, most of us know where our depression is coming from. We may even know how we can get out of it. But we lack the courage.  

Jonah understood that it was his sin which had sent him to the deep. He also understood that it was only his God who could get him out, and that is why he ‘prayed unto’ him, ‘I will look again toward thy holy temple’. It is a lesson which Asaph had also learnt earlier in his heavy gloom: ‘For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning…When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end’ (Psa 73:14-17). And turning to God is how we always begin to get out of depression, ‘Salvation is of the LORD’. ‘And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land’ (Jon 2:9b-10).  

Thus the fish was a gift to Jonah from God. It saved him from drowning. Not all crises are meant to destroy us. For his saints, crises are meant to make us reflect, to purify us and to cleanse us. How you do you perceive the crisis you are in? One can view it as a curse from God and grow even more bitter (and help Satan in his evil). Or one can receive it as a gift from God to prevent them from drowning: ‘I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me’ (Psa 119:75). The ‘corrections’ of God are always righteous, and they are not designed to bring us evil. Thus the psalmist thanked his God: ‘At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments’ (Psa 119:62).  ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word’ (Psa 119:67). God give us the eyes to behold our sin, and God give us the courage to confess it.

Finally depression came to Job but he didn’t charge ‘God foolishly’. So sometimes even righteous people will have their ‘three days and three nights in the fish belly’. It happens, because no one can quite ‘know God to perfection’. Sometimes he hides himself and no one can ask him why. But in the end God makes something beautiful out of all his saints’ ashes. May yours too be something we shall read or talk about one day.