Thank God in Every Circumstance

The Insurance Journal claims some cities are safer than others from natural disasters. Of the 50 largest US metro areas, Oklahoma City OK, Austin TX, and Miami FL are the riskiest, with Miami being the worst. Sacramento CA, Salt Lake City UT, and Portland OR are the safest, with Portland being the best. NYC is somewhere in the middle.

If you’re like me, when you moved to NYC (or wherever you live), you considered several factors, but the risk of natural disasters wasn’t one of them. Otherwise, we’d all be living in Oregon! (I did live there for a summer as an undergrad church intern.)

Why? Perhaps because the risk of natural disaster may not have occurred to you. Or perhaps you’ve accepted, like most people, that problems will come. If not a natural disaster, then something else.

Like most people, you try to avoid big problems.

You watch your health, avoid scams, and choose friends carefully. Yet you know that some things are out of your control.

After all, life has two sides, the good times and the bad. We thank God for the good times and hope for more. But what about the bad? Crushing debt. Car accidents. Unexpected deaths. Losing your job. Dysfunctional relationships. Identity theft. Shattered expectations. Flooded basements. Chronic health conditions and shocking diagnoses.

When we pray on Thanksgiving Day, we thank God for the good things of life – family, friends, and the feast before us. But do we thank him for the bad things, too? Should we?

When you give thanks to God you uncover his greatness and goodness. That’s why we should thank him and bless him for the food we eat, and that’s why we should pray thanks and say thanks for the Christians in our lives. But what about the problems?

Sometimes we complain about our problems, but that’s no good. So we usually accept them on one hand or run away from them on the other. But these responses (complain, tolerate, or run) hide God. They do nothing to uncover his greatness and goodness. As a result, we hide God from those who are spiritual blind around us (Rom 1:21).

There’s a fourth option – thankfully. You should face problems thankfully. A thankful approach transforms your problems into precious opportunities to uncover the greatness and goodness of God.

A thankful approach transforms your problems into precious opportunities to uncover the greatness and goodness of God.

Paul once traveled to a city called Thessalonica. (Acts 17:1-10)

This is still a city in Greece today. After teaching for a few weeks, many believed on Christ, but a mob attacked the home where Paul was staying. They dragged the homeowner and other new Christians to court to litigate them. As a result, the believers sent Paul away from the city to safety.

• He wanted to visit them again but could not (1 Thess 2:18).
• He worried that they would succumb to the pressures of their city (1 Thess 3:18).
• Thessalonica was not an easy place to be a Christian (1 Thess 1:6; 2:14).

Know the feeling? Finding it hard to be a thankful, thriving Christian where you’re living?

Paul thanked God for the Christians in Thessalonica (1 Thess 1:2), but some had become lazy, discouraged, and weak, and some were being treated badly (1 Thess 5:14-15).

At the end of the letter, he urged them to be thankful like him despite their challenging circumstances (1 Thess 5:18). He said, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” What does this mean?

Giving thanks in circumstance is the will of God.

Whatever it means, it was “the will of God” for them. Earlier in the letter, Paul said it was “the will of God” for them to distance themselves from wrong sexual behavior (1 Thess 4:3). Then he said it was also “the will of God” for them to be thankful in everything.

So God wants both these things to happen in your life, but why? Since Jesus has identified with you as Savior, becoming guilty for your sins in a negative sense, so you should identify with him by living your life like him in a good and positive sense.

Depend on Jesus for the wisdom and strength you need to stop committing sexual sins and for the grace you need to be thankful in difficult times. Both are big challenges!

“Giving thanks” means to acknowledge and appreciate the greatness and goodness of God. It’s always easy to do this for your food, and sometimes easy to do for the Christians in your life, but it’s not always easy to do with your problems.

The little phrase “in everything” is important. “Everything” means “all” and refers to every circumstance in your life, even the unpleasant or painful ones.

“In” means “in the midst of” (or something like that). It does not mean “for.” It would make no sense at all to be thankful for bad things. Instead, you should be thankful for the opportunity to experience bad things. Why? Because the bad and difficult experiences of life are opportunities to uncover the greatness and goodness of God.

Let’s talk about the concert of life.

In a large concert, there are multiple stages. Some are smaller than others and feature lesser known performers. But the main stage, which is the largest, features the most famous performers.

In the concert of life, your problems are the main stage.

In the concert of life, your problems are the main stage. Thanking God for your food and for the Christians in your life happens on smaller stages (though important). But thanking God for your problems happens on the main stage.

Yet for whatever reason, this is the stage that we most frequently run from. When the lights dim and spotlight shines down on this stage, we’re often hiding behind the curtain or shaking with stage fright. But where’s the glory of God in that?

The greatest problems of life give us the brightest opportunity to uncover the greatness and goodness of God, and this begins by thanking him for the opportunity in the first place.

The greatest problems of life give us the brightest opportunity to uncover the greatness and goodness of God

Let’s consider four Bible examples of people who uncovered the greatness and goodness of God through their problems.

In each of these cases, a person who followed God experienced some major problems, but they learned to shine the spotlight on God. For this, I give them each a 5-star rating.

Job lost everything.

Job lived thousands of years ago. He was a good man with a good relationship with God. He was married, had ten children, and was a successful businessman who had become insanely wealthy (Job 1:1-3). Then all in one day he lost everything to natural disasters and theft (Job 1:13-19). He even lost his health (Job 2:1-8), so his wife encouraged him to commit suicide (Job 2:9). His problem? He lost everything.

In these tragic moments, Job chose “blessed God” and did not complain (1:21). Unknown to him, he also showed Satan and the angelic world his close relationship with God. In the end, after a long series of intense conversations with his so-called friends, he discovered in an even bigger way the greatness and goodness of God. What’s more, God gave him ten more children and more wealth than ever, and he lived to see his great, great grandchildren.

If Job had never had these problems, he never would have learned such amazing lessons about God and would never have shown to Satan the depth of his loyalty to God.

Joseph was hated, falsely accused, and forgotten.

Joseph grew up in a difficult home (Gen 37-50). His problem? His father, Jacob, had two wives and two unofficial wives and was a very old man, and his mother was dead. He also had ten older brothers who hated him so much they sold him into slavery in a faraway land, Egypt. There he was falsely accused of sexual misconduct and landed in prison for years. Another inmate promised to help him after his release, but forgot him instead.

After fifteen difficult years, Pharaoh promoted him to second in command over the entire country. In that role, he protected the lives of many people (thousands, maybe millions) from a severe, seven-year famine. When he had opportunity to take revenge on his brothers, he said, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen 50:19-20).

If Joseph had never had these problems, he never would have helped so many people.

Peter was confused and disappointed.

Peter was a blue-collar fisherman who followed Jesus for three years. He had some amazing experiences (like walking on water), but he also had some run-ins with the Lord, arguing with him about theology and future plans. On the day that Jesus died, he cussed and swore to protect his own life, denying that he ever knew Jesus. Then he locked himself away and decided to go back to fishing. His problem? He was confused and disappointed.

What looked like a dark period in Peter’s life turned out to his advantage. Before this all happened, Jesus said, “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31-32). Just as Satan wanted to take out Job, he also wanted to take out Peter. But Peter came through this experience in the end and was able to strengthen and establish the faith of the other disciples as a result.

If Peter had never had these problems, he never would have been able to provide the spiritual leadership and understanding that his Christian friends needed.

Paul had a chronic physical health condition.

Paul was a faithful leader in the early church, yet he himself suffered greatly. His problem? Well, he had lots of them. One of them was a chronic physical health condition. He called it a “thorn in the flesh” and said that Satan was using it to “knock him around” spiritually (2 Cor 12:7). He even pleaded with God three times for healing, but God refused.

Through this painful and uncomfortable health problem, Paul discovered that God wanted him to depend on his supernatural grace (his divine goodness) for strength to endure his physical suffering. In fact, he even learned to find delight and pleasure in all kinds of health problems, insults and disasters, financial and material needs, persecution, and other very troubling circumstances “for Christ’s sake” (2 Cor 12:7-10).

If Paul had never suffered this problem (and so many other ones), he never would have shown us how to handle our own suffering for God’s eternal glory. We’d think that healing was the only way.

What about you?

Are you giving thanks to God in every circumstance? Are you embracing all the bad times in your life and the difficult experiences as opportunities to shine the spotlight on the greatness and goodness of God?

Are you stepping out onto the stage of your problems with thankfulness to uncover to all who see your life the greatness and goodness of God?

1. Show Satan and other spiritual beings the strength of your trust in God.
2. Reveal God’s greatness and goodness to unbelieving family, friends, and relatives.
3. Gain a deeper personal understanding of God’s character and ways.
4. Receive a better outcome in the end than what you lost in the first place.
5. Provide leadership and help to other Christians in your life, both in material and spiritual ways, as a result of how you handled your own problems.
6. Discover how to experience God’s grace and strength amid your suffering.

Which is the more incredible story? The boy who grew up in Boston to wealthy parents who are politicians, attended elite schools, graduated from Yale, and earned an honorary position at his alma mater? Or the girl who grew up in the slums of Haiti without a father, learned to read on her own at night after working all day in the fields, earned her way into Johns Hopkins University, and received the Nobel Prize?

We all want the easy path with fewer problems, but where’s the greatness and goodness of God in that? When you give thanks to God in all the difficulties you go through, you uncover his greatness and goodness through the opportunities your suffering provides.

We all want the easy path with fewer problems, but where’s the greatness and goodness of God in that?

More than any other thing, the bad times and difficult experiences of your life give you a platform and stage like no other to shine the spotlight on God through thanksgiving. Sadly, we often run from the stage or act out in such a way that God seems bad, cruel, or unloving to those who see us. Let’s give God thanks instead in every circumstance so that we can uncover the greatness and goodness of God to a watching world.

• What problems are you going through right now?
• Does your thankful approach get a 3, 4, or 5-star rating … or worse?
• How are you doing on that stage?
• Are you giving thanks to God there?
• Is your thankful approach shining the spotlight on God’s greatness and goodness to those who know and see your suffering?

Imagine a church where every member embraced every problem for the glory of God, like one grand concert for all to see. We don’t complain, run, or simply accept what happens, but we give thanks to God and uncover his greatness and goodness. If we do this, our God would become so much more visible to people in our metro area who are blind to his reality. And best of all – the tickets are free.

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Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.