Eucharistia

It’s the end of the year again. For most people, there is a sense of reflection that it comes with. We attempt to review the concluding year and set our hearts again for the coming here. It tends to leave us with mixed feelings.

What then do we do? How can we live through this season in a God-glorifying and edifying manner?

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

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV)

The disposition of mind and our expression should be that of Thanksgiving.

It’s worthy of note that the Apostle Paul wrote this to the believers in Thessalonica, after having a clear picture of the context and pressures they lived and exercised their Faith.

He speaks of the context wherein they lived:

[14]For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

[15]Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:

1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 (KJV)

And the context in which, he was writing:

Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith:

1 Thessalonians 3:7 (KJV)

So both the writer and his primary audience were having it rough, and yet, he exhorts them to give thanks to God in everything. Why does he do this?

Because it is the Will of God that we give him thanks in everything.

For the Believer, the will of God is the supreme desire that we ought to align with. This is not the Apostle ignoring or trivializing the challenges and present difficulties, he is rather saying that those very things can become for us, objects of Thanksgiving. They can become opportunities for Thanksgiving.

Another reason I can think of is this: When we fail to give thanks, we give something else. It might be ingratitude, murmuring or complaining, or grumbling. These things are not pleasing to God; they poison our hearts and corrupt our minds from discerning present opportunities or future possibilities. They magnify our challenges and shut up our streams of Joy.

Dearly beloved, whatever the year has brought you so far, resolve this: to still have Joy. Give thanks to God, for it is the will of God concerning. Prioritize His will, and commit your ways before him.