I’m Thankful For

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV)18 “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” No matter what situation I find myself, I am slowly starting to understand, and realize the nature of God’s blessings is not the absence of trouble, it’s the presence of grace and mercy during troubled times. I have live through many horrible experiences, but in all of them I have come to see a blessing buried deep within the pain. Sometimes, more often then not, it takes time, study, focus, and patience to slowly and meticulously uncover the truth hidden, buried under the sand. Much like unearthing an ancient tomb, or a set of fossils, time and serenity are needed in order to reveal the secrets. I have fought many long years against an angry kid who felt he got a raw deal. I have fought the very nature of grace because anger was easier to suppress instead of facing the natural emotion, and seeing God’s grace buried deep within. For many years I blamed everyone and everything to include myself for the tragedies that befell my life, and yet, when the sun came up I felt no better for it. I have buried friends, buried loved ones and I have mourned the loss of not one but two failed marriages, all in which I blamed myself. God it seems was laying the foundation and I was just to angry, too hurt, too wounded to see what was really happening. God is beyond patient, and we can’t comprehend the nature of God, if we could He wouldn’t be God. But what we can comprehend with our little brains, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to us as a Child, in which we are about to celebrate his birth, and grew to be a man. In his own life he suffered loss, he suffered betrayal, he suffered persecution, he suffered bullies, and ultimately he suffered the ultimate sacrifice, and here we are upset over what that family member said, or what that other driver who cut us off on the highway. We watch the sun come up, and the weight of yesterday still weighs down upon us, and we hold in the past like a desperate cleave to loosing apart of ones own body. How sad we’ve become that we cannot look at our lives, and examine the pain and truly acknowledge where it comes from. God has revealed to me in study, in time, in patience, but must importantly in love that these things, all of the pain and trials, that in the fire is when everything is burned away that isn’t who we are meant to be. This can only happen if you are following Christ, and allowing him to mold, shape, and strengthen you. How can we be these things if we cannot appreciate and be thankful for the single greatest gift known in the entire universe, Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the last Alter God would choose to use. The Cross, a symbol of the trinity, altered to include the final piece, the blood sacrifice where Jesus Christ’s blood covered the whole of the earth, washing away our eternal sins, and giving us the one, and only true sense of joy, it’s in the hope of eternal salvation with our Heavenly Father. How thankful are we to have a loving and giving father? How thankful are we to live this life and go through our trials so that we may become more like Christ, walk more like Christ, live more like Christ, and love more like Christ? 

Trials are not there to break you, but to build you up, to show you mercy and grace and love, and they are there to remove parts of you that are not needed. Trials are there to forge you, to prepare you for the fight that comes to each and every one of us every day on the spiritual plane. The troubles of the past are not meant to be carried with you every day feeding the hopeless, the sorrow of your souls, but instead to show you God, to have you turn to God with your sorrows, and trust in the love to heal your broken heart. I am a stronger man today not because of my own will, but because God has given me the strength to survive years of trauma and sadness. I am a stronger man today because I realize the need for those things in my life, and what better way to train for the spiritual war, then to be put through battles every day? I am thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Psalm 23:1-4 The Lord is my shepherd “I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Do not hold onto the past, be thankful for it, and take only what you can carry. Do not burden yourself with the sorrows for they are gone, instead use them to bring Glory to God. Find a way to use what you have experienced, grow from what you have seen, and draw closer to your Father in Heaven. I have seen and done so much in my life, and while I didn’t enjoy it, I am thankful for it. The Lord prepares you for the mission, prepares you for the commission, but it’s up to you to take what you have experienced, look at it as training, be thankful God has prepared you, and do not let it go to waist. Even when the troubles were of your own doing, we still have the ability to learn, to grow, and decide not to make those mistakes again. Failure is the greatest of teachers, so be thankful for all your trials, all your failures, and thankful for the many, many blessings. You could never add up that the Lord God Almighty has deemed fit to bestow upon each and every one of you. We are created from nothing, a miracle of life, more then a billion combinations of possible outcomes to become a unique individual with gifts and talents that no one on earth would share the same combinations. This allows you to grow, to love or hate, to give or steal, to be with God or not. Be thankful for the choice, and be thankful for the choice God has made to forgive you of your sins, and as we know, God is the God of many, many chances, so be thankful today, and every day for the love we receive in Christ’s Holy Name.