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’.
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