Never Ending Praise The Lord

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV  “Give Thanks In All Circumstances. For This is God’s Will For You In Christ Jesus.”

 I have a question for you. Have you stopped and given thanks to the Lord today? Really think about this for a second. Think past the bills that are piling up, your stressful job, and how broken you might feel. What have you thanked God for?

Believe it or not, anxiety and depression had a stronghold on my life for a long time. Negativity surrounded me. A lot of it was company I kept, circumstances of life, and not walking in line with Christ. Because I wasn’t really living as a true Christian, showing gratitude never even crossed my mind. I was so focused on everything that was so wrong, that I didn’t even open my heart’s eyes to all that was right.

As I’ve been thinking about gratitude, I looked to scripture and even throughout history for inspiration and connection.  I’ve been guilty of saying things like, “Of course that person can find things to be grateful for, they haven’t even walked a mile in my shoes.” I was officially aboard the pity train in those days. However, there are people who, surprise, have had it much worse than I could imagine and somehow, they maintained their attitude of gratitude.

For instance, as Paul sat under imprisonment for his ministry, heavily guarded, he wrote the book of Ephesians. In fact, he said to give thanks to God in everything. [Eph. 5:20]. I’ve never been imprisoned, but I can tell you anxiety and depression are a sort of prison all their own. Paul has many instances of straight gratitude in the midst of hardship all through the books of Thessalonians and Acts.

I’m left to ponder what was so great in Paul’s life that he was able to look past all of lifes unfair circumstances and instead see blessing? The answer doesn’t lay in wealth or worldly possessions. The answer is God himself- His goodness and faithfulness, his perfect sovereignty, his unconditional love, and the cost of that love.

This came together for me after a short period in a psychiatric ward, when I began seeing a therapist. He advised me to start a gratitude list of three to five things a day. Then, I moved and during a period of loneliness, I started the gratitude lists up again. That list of small five things a day grew and grew until I found I was grateful for at least a hundred things daily. Some of it was a little silly, some of it was more personal and of course a lot of it was repetitive. I found that my depression kept me in the past, my anxiety had me worrying about my future, but being grateful kept me in the present and the more I chose to find things to be grateful for, the more joy I found.  My anxiety and depression lifted entirely because I focused on all the blessings that came from God.

With the holidays upon us, it’s a great time to put gratitude into practice and sit in a quiet time of reflection to just pray and thank God for his goodness and faithfulness- even if it’s small and silly.