Well…it’s nearly Thanksgiving so it seems appropriate to say a little about giving thanks. As children, some of us were taught to always say “thank you” for any gift or courtesy. Apparently, not everyone was taught that bit of etiquette, but God certainly wants his children to say, “Thank you.”

Paul wrote. “Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Th 5:16–19). Three directives are set out here for God’s people – rejoice, pray, and give thanks. The directives point to a lifestyle, not just an occasional moment of rejoicing, praying, or being thankful. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.

Interestingly, these are also keys for mental health. At a recent conference in South Africa, a breakout session on mental health emphasized that the practice of “intentional gratitude” was a bedrock of mental health. The idea of intentional gratitude is the art of learning to look for things in your life for which you can be grateful and then expressing gratitude for those things on a daily or even hourly basis.

I have met with many, many people through the years who, at least from my perspective, had significant things to be thankful for, but had become focused on one issue in their life that was not what they wanted it to be. That negative focus on the “one thing” created a kind of tunnel vision that kept them from recognizing all the other good things in their life. As a result of their constantly negative focus, they became depressed, bitter and resentful. They typically took offense at God for not answering that one prayer and took no notice of the thousands of others prayers he had answered.

Without doubt, some of the “unanswered prayers ” were related to real tragedies – the death of a child, a divorce, a longing for marriage that had never been fulfilled, the loss of a business, a crippling disease that had yet to be healed, and so forth. These are real things that impact individuals and families. But God has never promised us passage through this life that does not include loss, pain, and trouble. He simply says that he will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

The truth is that we must accept that we may experience deep pain and disappointment in this world. The promise that God will wipe away all tears is for the next world. But intentional gratitude will alleviate much of the pain in this world that may be self-imposed. Thanksgiving is a spiritual discipline that keeps us from losing our balance and that keeps us from forgetting that we are loved by God. If we practice that discipline between the hard seasons, we can remember to look for his love and blessing even as we stand beside a grave. That is what gives us hope.

I have heard this verse misquoted and, I believe, misunderstood. Some say we should thank God for all circumstances. But, he says in all circumstances. The difference is significant. If I thank God for my cancer or for the death of my child, I am saying these things come from him. If I thank him in that circumstance, I am thanking him that he is with me, shall sustain me, and will bring me into a place of comfort once again. That is my hope. Because of Jesus, he shall turn my mourning into dancing.

I believe our ultimate question is whether God loves us or not. Every blessing, every encouragement, every meal, every healing, every person who cares about us is an expression of God’s love. If we evaluate his love on the basis of one tragedy, disappointment, or loss, then we miss the reality that he is still loving us and caring for us in a myriad other ways.

Giving thanks in all circumstances is a key to mental, spiritual, and relational health. As we come into this season of Thanksgiving, we may want to begin to be more intentional about perceiving his love and acknowledging it through prayers of thanksgiving to him…for the big things and well as the smaller things of life. It is his will for us in Christ Jesus and his will always brings a blessing.

I’m amazed how often great men of the kingdom finish poorly or even badly. Hezekiah was one of the great kings of Judah, but in 2 Chronicles the text says, “In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah” (2 Chron. 32:24-26).

The important phrase in this text is, “he did not respond to the kindness of the Lord.” As humans, we clearly have a propensity to forget the Lord by forgetting the good things he has done for us. That seems to come in two forms. One is that we forget all the good God has done for us because we are disappointed in the outcome of one thing. The second is that we forget that God has been the source of our blessings and success and start to believe that we are successful because of how amazing we are.

I was visiting with a Free Indeed leader in another state last night who shared that a woman in her church who had lost a six-day-old child, no longer trusts the Lord. She has two other children who are healthy and happy, but she has measured God’s goodness and faithfulness based on one circumstance that did not turn out as she had hoped. Obviously, her loss no small thing, but to decide that God cannot be trusted is even a bigger thing. I have seen numerous others do that as well because they faced some hardship or disappointment and believed that a good God or a faithful God would not have let them experience that loss or hardship. In difficult moments we must remember that the absence of pain is reserved for heaven not for our time on this earth.

In addition, we need to remember that God is also the source of our success. Certainly, our abilities and hard work can bring some level of success, but our abilities and capacity to work are from God. I have also seen talented and hardworking people that never seemed to reap the rewards of their efforts. The Bible tells us in numerous places that wealth and blessings come from God. We are also told that stewarding that wealth in a godly way can be a huge challenge. Remembering that our wealth is a blessing from God is essential to stewarding it well and not ending up in the ditch because of our pride.

Hezekiah had brought revival to Judah and had served God in may ways, but in his later years he apparently took credit for all of that in his own heart and, perhaps, even believed that God had healed him of a terminal illness because he had earned the blessing, Pride became a huge stumbling block for a man who had once honored God with all of his heart.

The question is how do we guard against taking offense with God because he failed to respond to one situation as we wanted him too and how do we guard against forgetting that our accomplishments and successes are also gifts from God?

One essential way to guard against failing to “respond to the kindness of God” is to develop the habit off giving thanks not only for all the big blessings but for the very small blessings of life and seeing those blessings as gifts from God that we don’t deserve any more that we deserve salvation. David declared, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Ps 100:3–4).

Thanksgiving opens the gate that lets us into the presence of God and prompts our praise. When I am disappointed in one outcome, I must remember how often God has been good to me in other circumstances. A practice of thanksgiving reminds me of his goodness in every other part of my life so that I don’t judge him to be unkind or unfaithful when I am disappointed.

Thanksgiving also reminds me of the source of my blessings, my wealth, and my success. It guards against pride because it is a constant reminder that every good thing in my life has come to me by the grace of God. Men and women in the kingdom of God who have been great servants at one time can begin to take credit for all they have accomplished and become proud. It seems that in our later years, we are especially vulnerable to that temptation. Solomon forgot God in his later years and became an idolator. Hezekiah became proud and invited the discipline of God on himself and his nation. Through the years, amazing church leaders and evangelists have also fallen prey to spiritual pride and sexual temptation and have forgotten that the God they had been preaching was the source of their gifts and the source of their accomplishments in the kingdom.

A life of thanksgiving for the little blessings and the big, is one practice that can help us stay on track. Thank God for a beautiful morning, for the capacity to get out of bed and go to work, and for seasons in your life when you are not facing a crisis. Thank God for the handy parking spot and for the blessing of friends. Thank God for a night’s rest and for everything that makes you smile. When trouble comes, thank him for his promises and when disappointment comes, thank God that he has promised to bring good out of every hard circumstance.

I attended a funeral of a church leader in our area yesterday who had just died of cancer. The preacher said, “When you can’t understand what God is doing with his hands, you can always trust his heart.” I thought that was a good word. Constant thanksgiving can train our hearts to trust in him and in his heart. May we all be known in heaven for our thanksgiving because God is good…all the time and his goodness drips on us in many, many ways large and small. To forget that is to invite failure.

Well…Thanksgiving will be upon us in just a few days. It is one of my favorite family holidays and is traditionally intended to be a day of thankfulness for the blessings that we enjoy.  Hopefully, that is not the only day we express thanks for the good things in our lives.  What I want to suggest in this blog is that Thanksgiving should not be merely a day, but a lifestyle. In fact, I think it is a very powerful form of spiritual warfare.

The apostle Paul told us that we should not be unaware of Satan’s schemes.  He should never be our main focus, but we do need to be wise in his ways.  Satan doesn’t seem to have many strategies, but only a few which are expressed in many ways.  The first encounter with him is recorded in Genesis where the “serpent” tempted Adam and Eve.  This strategy is a primary strategy that he uses over and over. Basically, he did what every successful salesperson does…he created a sense of discontentment  with their circumstance so that they began to feel a desire for something different or something more in their lives. 

Satan planted a seed of distrust in Adam and Eve when he said, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden?’”  With that question, which was more of a statement, he implied that God had a stingy side that might be withholding good things from them.  He was hinting that he knew Yaweh was the kind of god that would surround people with abundance, but then refuse to share it with them. He knew there was only one tree from which they were not to eat, but his question suggested that there was something spectacular and good to be gained from that tree, that God did not want them to have.  

Suddenly, instead of being thankful for all that they did have – every tree in the Garden, including the Tree of Life – they suddenly felt a lack in their life and began to resent God for withholding the “one thing they really needed for happiness.” As soon as they accepted the premiss that God withholds good things from his people, they came into agreement with the enemy which gave him open access to their lives.  Within a few years, they were not only living outside the Garden,  scratching a living out of a hostile earth, but one son murdered the other.  

Satan loves to get us to define God by something he hasn’t done for us that we think is the key to our happiness, rather than defining him by all the things he has done for us. If God has answered ten thousand prayers for us, we are prone to only think about one prayer that has not yet been answered or was not answered in the way we wanted. We then begin to believe that God doesn’t hear our prayers or that he doesn’t care about us.  That view of God makes us very susceptible to the schemes of Satan.

A lifestyle of thanksgiving is a very effective way to push back against the lies of the enemy.  We need a lifestyle of thanking God for every blessing we encounter…large or small.  If it blesses us, thank God for it.  Thank him for Jesus, your salvation, his grace, his patience, his Spirit, but also a beautiful morning, a parking spot, hot water, an old car that still gets you where you need to go, an amusing squirrel, friends, purpose, a job, health, four inflated tires in the morning, etc.  These are things we don’t always pray for, but they are gifts from God none the less and we should thank him for each of those as we go through our day.  

When we recognize and verbalize the abundance of small blessings from God that make up our lives, it creates a belief in us that God is, indeed, good and faithful.  

When we have that view of God, it is much more difficult for the enemy to suggest to us that God may not have our best interests at heart after all, and is keeping from us the very thing that would give us happiness.  Remember, Satan is the ultimate salesman and he has been selling lies for thousands of years.  He is always highlighting what we don’t have and convincing us that there is something or someone out there that would make our life complete and worth living, if God were not standing in our way.  

Paul believed that God would always give us what we needed for life, love, joy and peace. He stated in his letter to the church at Philippi, “for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Phil.4:11-13).

Paul believed that God is a good father who always gives us what we need in every season and, in his wisdom, sometimes says “no” to what we want.  A lifestyle of thanksgiving helps us walk in the same contentment because it keeps is focused on what we have, rather than what we don’t have.

So,  this Thanksgiving, give thanks for all the big things, but all the small things as well….then keep it up for the next twelve months.  You will find that a heart of thanksgiving slams the door on Satan in many, many ways. 

How often do we hear the word “deserve” used in our culture and, especially, on television ad campaigns?  “Get all the benefits you deserve.”  “Find all the happiness you deserve.” “Finally, you can live in that dream house you deserve!”  There are times when we definitely deserve some things because we have earned them.  If you put in the hours at work and do the job, you deserve to be paid.  If you have poured out the sweat to learn a craft, develop a skill, or become the best in a certain field you merit some recognition.  However, in our entitlement culture of participation trophies and no criticisms or rebukes, too many of us feel we deserve only good things and positive outcomes,  simply because we exist.

There are numerous dangers attached to that mindset, but the spiritual dangers are immense.  The moment I begin to believe that I am simply entitled to everything that others have, I feel cheated and victimized when I don’t have the possessions, the position, or the recognition of those around me.  Any rebuke, criticism, or discipline that comes my way is met with my anger and my demands that you or life has been unfair to me. What I am finding is that the entitlement mindset in our culture is creating an anger towards God because we think he hasn’t given us everything we desire and deserve.

That mindset eventually robs us of a heart of thankfulness and gratitude, which is a key to spiritual life and even spiritual warfare.  Paul taught the Philippians, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil.4:6-7).  Peace in our hearts is a quality that keeps Satan at bay. 

Thanksgiving places the emphasis on the goodness and generosity of God rather my own entitlement. My assurance in the goodness of God, despite my circumstances, leads to peace and peace guards my heart. The belief that I should always have what others have, with no effort on my part, and that I am not loved unless I get everything I want, breeds a life of envy and jealousy.  It robs a man or woman of contentment and is an open door for the enemy.

One of the key lessons to life and maturity is to understand Paul’s admonition to the Galatians. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest” (Gal.6:7). God has established a principle that we harvest what we plant in this life…both in the natural realm and the spiritual realm.  A harvest requires personal investment, work, effort, patience, and faith.   Any other view is deception. Certainly, gifts come to us that we did not earn, but those are the exception in life rather than the rule.  Our salvation is a gift from God, not something we could earn, but kingdom rewards come as a result of our faithful service to the King and our patient pursuit of His kingdom.  

For our children who have developed an entitlement mentality through our desire to give them everything they want when they want it, along with status and recognition they have not earned through effort, life is going to be a series of disappointments that they blame on everyone but themselves – including God.  The belief that they deserve all the perks of life and the blessings of the Kingdom without real effort on their part, is going to shortchange them in the long run and leave them empty and bitter. They will eventually feel cheated by life and eventually feel victimized by everyone and every circumstance. 

What we need to understand is that the only thing any of us truly deserve is eternity in hell.  Everything else should be considered a gift for which we are truly thankful even when it took effort on our part to receive it. Our focus must remain on what we have rather than what we don’t have.  What God has done for us, rather than something he hasn’t yet done for us. 

Paul spoke about the fact that he had learned the secret of contentment in every circumstance – when he had plenty and when he had little. The secret was his faith in the goodness and sovereignty of God.  He believed in every circumstance, what he had was designed by God to bring out the best in him and to produce the greatest harvest through him.  Even when he suffered, he believed there was some significant purpose that redeemed the suffering.  He never questioned God’s love when he didn’t have the position, possessions, or recognition “he deserved.”  He was simply thankful for what he did have – especially eternal life.  That needs to be our perspective on life and entitlement as well, and we need to teach that to our children.