praise God – Scattered Journal Pages

Thankfulness For a Change, Anyone?

I’ve had a crazy few days, so this post will be short. But in honor of Thanksgiving coming this week, I wanted to write something about being thankful. Happy early Thanksgiving, everyone.

It’s five days until Thanksgiving. The day we gorge ourselves on turkey, stuffing (rightfully named), potatoes, squash, veggies, and pie.

(And then we go shopping at midnight or after to get the best deals on more stuff. Seriously, America? We’ve gotten our fill of thankfulness for the year and then we go shopping wherein we pepper-spray people over xbox?)

Please excuse me for being cliché here, but we often forget about being thankful.

For crying out loud, people have nicknamed Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.” WHAT. The thankfulness is gone.

Every day, I’m realizing something more and more.

Thankfulness isn’t a switch. We shouldn’t turn it on when we feel like it, and off the rest of the time. Even I am guilty of this.

I will say that it’s linked to joy. (Check out my joy posts here and here.) Thankfulness, like joy, should not be circumstantial.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

I mean, when things are tough and life is hard, it seems so difficult to be thankful.

Here’s some encouraging news.

We have so much to be thankful for, even if not materially.

Our salvation, for starters. When put into perspective, it’s kind of amazing what Jesus has done for us.

God always has a plan.

I’m not going to fluff everything up and say that it’s all great all the time. I promise it’s not. Life is hard and non-glamourous. But all the hard things we go through are an opportunity for God to work, which is ultimately the best thing.

And you know what else?

Our thankfulness is praise to God.

Our thankfulness should not depend on our “feeling thankful” or “feeling blessed,” but because God is always good.

Psalm 7:17

“I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.”

This year, I encourage you to give thanks. Not just when things go well, or just on Thanksgiving, but every day.

Thank you God for your love.

Thank you God for giving me this life.

Thank you God for giving me opportunities to live for you in freedom.

Thank you God for always having a plan, even when I can’t see it.

Thank you God for never leaving me on my own when life gets tough.

*aj

So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I’ve been thinking about a “Christianese” phrase that gets tossed around a lot. Thinking about this common phrase has brought me to question when and why we actually say this.

I suppose that there are many ways to say “Praise God,” or “Praise the Lord.” But we hear it a bunch from “Spiritual” people, don’t we?

“He got a new job!” “Well, Praise the Lord!”

“She bought a house!” “Oh, Praise God!”

“They’re finally engaged!” “That’s awesome! Praise God!”

Okay, I’m NOT saying that it is bad to say this (somewhat clichéd) phrase, but I’m simply objecting to the when and the why.

For example, if my house burns down, am I going to get a bunch of calls the next day from my friends saying “Praise the Lord!”? Um, in this day and age, probably not. Because we, as 21st century Christians, tend to praise God for things that make us happy. (Funny thing. Kind of ironic, seeing that we are always saying that earthly things don’t matter.)

Since when do we only praise God about happy things? Since when do we only say “Praise the Lord” about things that we like and decide to be thankful for?

Hebrews 13:15 says, “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

I think that we all know that life isn’t always easy or pleasant. Therefore, ‘continually’ must mean always, and if life isn’t always easy, then that means that no matter what we are to praise God.

No matter what.

Or, how about this verse?

Psalm 150:6 states, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

Since every person has breath, this applies to all of us.

Everything and everyone and always.

Doesn’t sound very subjective to me.

See, it’s absolutely wonderful to praise God about good things. But we also must praise Him in the hard things. Do you want to know why?

God ALWAYS has a plan. He is ALWAYS in control. He is ALWAYS sovereign. He is ALWAYS God, and is ALWAYS worthy of praise. He never changes, so we should praise Him consistently. He is constant, and so should our praise to Him be.

(Cool side note: Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m listening to Hillsong’s new album, Empires. And a wonderful song came on for the first time that I’m hearing it, called Even When it Hurts (Praise Song). You wanna know what it’s about? Praising God, even when it hurts. *jaw drops*)

God is good, all the time. No exceptions! Let us praise Him with every word that comes out of our mouths, in every circumstance. He is worthy of our praise. ALWAYS.

*aj

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