As Thanksgiving Day November 28, 2013 looms on the horizon, I'm reading for my morning reflection, I Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18 (KJV), "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
This text is meaningful because this summer during a study tour in Rome, Italy, I walked the final trail of Paul in Rome. He was shackled, beaten, beheaded, and hung upside down because of his love for Jesus Christ, his preaching of the Gospel, and the organizing of faith communities throughout the known world. He is writing as that fate looms in the near future for him.
How powerful a thought to give thanks for everything? Particularly when one realizes that life is not a bed of roses and rain falls upon the just and the unjust. Still, Paul suggests we are to give thanks for everything. When the very context of Thanksgiving brings memories of times when the world was unblemished and the circle of love was wide and your responsibilities were few, even as the pain of lost moves through your spirit, Paul still says, give thanks for everything.
I wondered how is it possible to give thanks for everything, when everything has not been good. Then Paul spoke to me once again in Romans 8: 28. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
Thanksgiving is the more meaningful now because I can give thanks in everything because all things work together for the good.Why? Because I love the Lord, Jesus Christ and the Genesis story reminds me in the creation of the world that God said everything is good.
Happy Thanksgiving! Let us rejoice in the Lord and to continue to give thanks in everything!
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