Last week I wrote about the prayer acrostic ACTS and began with Adoration and Confession. This week I will continue with Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is when you thank God for what He has done for you. Some people will use Adoration as a time of Thanksgiving as they thank God for what He has done for them: “I praise you Father for this day, I praise you Father for my health.” Adoration is primarily a time when we praise God for who He is. Thanksgiving is a time when we thank Him for what He has done for us.
Most find it easy to thank God when times are good. But are you able to give thanks when things aren’t going so well? When you get an unexpected flat tire, when you are stuck in traffic on the freeway, or when the grocery line you’re in goes slower than the one next to you? Are you able to give thanks when there is conflict at work, when there’s an unlovable person on your ministry team, or when things don’t run smoothly during service?
Giving thanks isn’t only reserved for when times are good. If we only give thanks when times are good, we are basically praying, “God I will only thank you when things are going well. But when things aren’t going well, I’m not going to give thanks.” Some have the mindset that we are entitled to only good things since we are the children of God. Because God is good He wouldn’t allow His children to get physically sick, run into financial trouble, or have relational disharmony. Because we are His children, we should only receive blessings. But here’s something very important to ask: Who defines what those blessings look like? You or God?
We think blessings look like good health, lots of money, free from conflict, and a good job. I’m not saying those aren’t blessings from the Lord, but are they man-defined blessings or God-defined blessings? Sometimes blessings can disguised as non-blessings. For example, I remember there was a huge traffic jam on Honolulu’s major freeway due to a garbage truck crashing over the median block. Social media lit up with people, particularly Christians, complaining of how terrible traffic was and how they were going to be late to various ministry activities. I thought, “Instead of complaining, people should see this as quality time with the Lord that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
I think one of the things we as Christians need to get better at is seeing things from God’s point of view rather than our point of view. Take for example Joseph from the book of Genesis. We could take a look at his life and see all the difficult times he went through: sold into slavery by his brothers, made a slave in Potiphar’s home, falsely accused of rape, thrown into prison, and forgotten by the cupbearer after interpreting his dream. Would you say he had a blessed life? From man’s point of view, the answer would be no.
But what if we took a look at it from God’s point of view? Joseph needed to be sold into slavery to get him to Egypt. He needed to get into Potiphar’s house and into prison in order to build his administrative skills. He needed to interpret the cupbearer’s dream so that he would eventually interpret Pharaoh’s dream. All of this would lead to Joseph becoming the prime minister of Egypt who would not only save the Egyptians but the beginning of the Jewish nation as well.
God sees the big picture and we don’t. Sometimes He will allow difficult times to happen for a reason (I’ll explain more about this in a few weeks). Therefore when things that don’t look like blessings come your way, can you still give thanks? We should be able to give thanks even when things aren’t going as expected. We need to teach ourselves this as well as those we influence.
Sometimes we don’t have good leaders who last because they can only see things from man’s point of view.
Questions to Think About:
Do you only give thanks when things are going well?
Think about a difficult time you recently went through. What do you think God wanted you to learn?
© Gary Lau 2013
All rights reserved. This article may not be distributed, forwarded or duplicated without prior permission from the author.
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