If You're Thankful And You Know It

Colossians 3:14-16 

¹⁴ Above all, clothe your selves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

¹⁶ Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.

Thankfulness is quite the concept. In scripture we are told to praise God and thank Him in all circumstances. But how do we thank Him in the hard times? And not just the hard times, but the really hard times. The times where you are so mad and fed up with the people around you that you just want to run away. The times where you literally just want to hide from the world and pretend it doesn’t exist, bury your face in the pillows and not move. The times you feel like your body could actually explode with emotion and be a river of tears and hot lava. The times that you feel like you can’t go on another day, facing the same old strife once again. How do you thank Him in your despair? And why should we thank Him when our world is more difficult than we ever thought possible?

I’ll answer “why” first. We thank Him when things seem impossible because it instantly causes our minds to shift focus. We start looking for the good parts of life. Do me a favor; look down at the ground. Do it! Nobody’s watching. Even if they are, they’ll just think you found something interesting. Look down. What do you see? Feet, dirt, carpet. Can you see anything in your peripheral vision when you are looking down? Probably not much. Can you see anything above you when you are looking down? Nope. Can you see anything directly in front of you while you are looking down? Hardly. Now look up. What do you see? Everything. All of a sudden your vision is so much clearer. You can see in all directions at once. What does this lesson in vision have to do with thankfulness you might ask? When life gets heavy, we tend to only see the heavy part which is illustrated as looking down at the ground. When life is heavy, you can’t see where you are going, you can only focus on what is “down there”, but once you lift your head up and start thanking God for things in your life, you see things from a whole new perspective. That’s why we thank Him in the hard times.

So how do we thank Him in the hard times? Start at the basics: “Thank you, God, for my children. Thank you, God, for my husband. Thank you, God, for giving me breath in my lungs today. Thank you, God, for the sunshine. Thank you, God, for food to eat.” Keep going until your attitude changes. It will change! Thankfulness is powerful!