What a concept: be thankful all the time, for all things, everywhere, and always.
Is this a recipe for disaster or for delight.
If I accept bad things that happen to me or around me am I not inviting bad things to come into my life?
If I get a package in the mail that I do not what I can refuse delivery. At one time in my spiritual journey I was taught to "reject all things that I do not want" and God will fill my life with only good things. What self-deception in the guise of spirituality.
Today, I accept every package that comes to my door. I do not separate packages that are form God and not, or packages that are good and bad. I welcome everything and the welcome changes everything. Everything is good not because it is qualitative evaluated as being good but it is transformed into goodness by acceptance, affirming love, and abiding grace.
This what Paul meant when he wrote to the Thessalonican Church people. "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (I Thessalonians 5:18). He was not saying to welcome bad and let that bad overwhelm you. He was saying welcome the bad and good so neither become the focus but the focus becomes welcoming all things and letting that transform all things into goodness and mercy that will follow me all the days of my life and I will be dwelling in the house of God now and forever. The will of God is not to accept the good and bad of life as from God but to accept that good and bad happen and in a spirit of thanksgiving find good in everything. That is the will of God for us all to find and transform the worst into the best and to transform the good from making us feel entitled to making us thankful.
So this Thanksgiving:
Be Thankful for the blue skies
Be Thankful for the grey skies
Be thankful for the storms that destroy some or all you have
Be thankful for the seas of glass that give peace that lasts
Be thankful for the people you love
Be thankful for the people you hate
Be thankful for people who like you
Be thankful for people who do not like you
In everything and for every one Give Thanks
About Me
- Don Paine
- I am a pastor and a clinical psychotherapist. My life's passion is defining healthiness from a human perspective and paralleling it to the holiness of God, divine perspective. Shifting perspectives creates a paradigm that is alongside of rather than over and against. The parakalein of God and the paradoxes of humanity are redefined. Humanity is all about winning and yet we are losing ground everywhere. Divinity is all about letting go of the desire to win and the fear of loss. The Divine embraces the world with loving care regardless of anything.
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