It’s usually those crazy, busy days when I lie down to sleep
and think “God, I don’t know where the day went…I’m sorry for not spending more
time with you, thank you for all of your blessings!” And then comes “honey, I
forgot to thank you for turning off the oven that I had left on…2 hours after
dinner, and for your sweet text message that I never responded to, and well,
for being you”.
I am
done with the late thank you. With those I love, and especially with God. Thank
you notes are pretty much the only type of thank you that I deem appropriate to
arrive 2 weeks late.
The
other day my husband reminded me about an issue we had been praying about for
over a year. He brought up the fact that the issue was pretty much now non-existent.
“Oh, wow your right” I thought. How did
I not notice that ‘the issue’ was no longer an issue anymore? In fact, it had
not been an issue for months. I felt ashamed that I had not been more aware of
how much God had blessed us and answered our prayer!
Paul
reminds us in 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 that it’s not enough to only be thankful
when things in our life are going well.
Instead, we are to “be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in
all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”. In other
words, we are called to give thanks to God, to pray, and to be joyful even when
we don’t feel like it.
This is often times really hard to
do because our natural human inclination is not to be joyful and give thanks
when we are sad, hurt, or discouraged. In
fact, Satan wants nothing more than for us to go farther and farther down a
dark hole of despair when we are having negative emotions. In order to go
against what Satan wants us to do and act in a way that God has called us to, we
have to make a conscious effort to go against our natural inclinations.
This takes discipline,
self-control, faith, and support. Here
are 5 ways to help you (and me) be joyful, give thanks, and pray in all
circumstances:
·
Begin your day in prayer and in God’s word. If
this can’t happen in the morning, do whatever you can to find a time to spend
10-15 min with God sometime before noon.
·
Keep a notepad or a saved e-mail to yourself
available as much as possible and jot down both the positive and the negative
thoughts, feelings and events throughout the day.
·
At the end of the day, keep the things you are
thankful for and then pray about the negative things. End your prayer with giving the negative
thoughts and feelings to God and erasing them. Remind yourself that only God
can have those thoughts, not Satan, for God will turn the bad into good, and
Satan will turn the bad into worse.
·
Ask whoever you are close to and trust to hold you
accountable for your actions. Are you so busy and stressed that you have a bad
attitude? Ask this person to kindly remind you when they see your attitude
shift so they can help you turn a bad attitude into a prayerful attitude.
·
Agree in your heart, in your mind, and with your
body that you will obey God, depend on Him, and acknowledge Him in all ways. Trust
that God will provide for you and cast your burdens on Him (Psalm 5:22).Practice being joyful by showing yourself and
everyone around you how much you love Jesus and how thankful you are for His
Grace, Love and Forgiveness. What is one of your favorite things to do? Go do
it, and give thanks to God while doing it!
The more we lay down our lives for
God, take up His spirit within us, and obey God, the more natural it will be
for us to be joyful and thankful in all circumstances. I don’t know about you,
but I will do whatever it takes to get closer to God and be joyful all the
time. Try it with me?
“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me”
(Proverbs 8:17).
Father God, Thank you
for never giving up on making us more like You. We are your clay and you are
the potter. Mold us and make us like You. Give us Your Holy Spirit and
transform our minds so that we may not miss a second to serve You and be Your hands
and feet. We love You. Amen.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment