Habit is a settled tendency or practice especially one that is hard to give up. Can we make thanksgiving our habit not only when things are great but when things aren’t great?
These past days have been a lot of a roller coaster for me; moving from one form of challenge to the other. My faith has been tested! For real I got to a point where I felt I couldn’t hold on to the promises and values of God anymore. It seem as though thanksgiving was ceased from my lips! I couldn’t even post for weeks because of the distractions. I am back now and I really want to say that thanking God in the midst of your problems really works!
I will say again, can we make thanksgiving to God one of our habits?
There are promises God has said to us. We got excited when we heard them, however as time progressed and it seem as though these promises have not manifested, your attitude towards the promises changed; and your find yourself complaining and grumbling instead of thanking God because you believe He has not done it.
Martha told Jesus that if He had been with them, their brother wouldn’t have died. Jesus told her that she should just believe and she will see the glory of God. In compassion, Jesus told them to roll the tomb where Lazarus laid and he said “ Lord I thank you because I know that you have heard me…” John 11:39-40
Can we imitate Jesus by thanking God for answered prayers even though we have have not seen the manifestation of the promises yet?
Thank God anyways even though your problems choke you. Do you know why? In your tears and pain, the glory of God is made manifest. This is where you feel vulnerable and it is evident that you can’t do anything on your own. This is very good because God wants us to be totally dependent on Him; not on our power or our might, but we be dependent on His spirit! Check out Zechariah 4:6-7
Here is what I believe can help us see thanksgiving to God in the midst of our pain worth it!
1. Our thanksgiving is rooted in the victory we already have in Jesus! 1 John 5:4a We thank God from the stand of Victory. God already told us that we have overcome everything. This is incredible! So incredible! We know that God has done everything (as seen in scripture), and because He has done everything then what we are going through will not last (at all).
2. Our thanksgiving does not exist in a vacuum. It’s authenticity and the manifestation of our desires according to the will of God is based on the fact that we believe that Jesus is the son of God. Yasssssss! Please check out 1 John 5: 4b-5
Jesus is the greatest gift that humanity has. Jesus has introduced to us eternal and abundant life. He has promised us mercy, grace and prosperity. Our successful existence on earth lies in the fact that we believe in Jesus, His life that He gave up for our sakes and His resurrection! In thanksgiving we say that Jesus is Lord and He is the son of God and so we thank Him because we believe that everything is working together for our good! The son of God has given up everything for us, so do you think He wouldn’t give us all our desire according to His will? Lets see what Romans 8:32 (The Passion Translation); For God has proved His love by giving us His greatest treasure, the gift of His son. And since God freely offered Him up as the sacrifice for us all, He certainly won’t withhold from us anything else He has to give.
Hallelujah!
Thank Him. You might not understand why you should thank Him in your cahllenges but thank Him anyways. He sacrifced hugely for us then trust me He will not withhold anything good from us. He is our good good Father. ( I am currently dancing in the Spirit) Hallulujah!
So we can say that the summary of the definition of our thanksgiving to God is; thanksgiving is a proacticve act that shows that we are victorious because we are Children of God living in continuous faith in God through His son Jesus Christ.
Exercise: What are those promises God has told you that has not manifested physically? Write them out and begin to thank God for already answered prayers.
Finally: we don’t live as the world lives; we Christians walk by faith and not by sight and that’s why we will continuously thank God in anticipation of His promises!
Ristch 