Some people think that being a Christian means acting as though we have no problems. Just paste a smile on your face and act as though everything is fine in complete defiance of the facts. But this is lunacy, not gratitude.
Jesus didn't come to earth in order to turn people into Pollyannas. He isn't asking us to pretend that life is better than it is. He came to heal us and save us and to restore our relationship with the Father and with each other. Honesty is essential for any healthy relationship. Embracing the call to give thanks is not a call to hypocrisy, nor is it an invitation to paper over life's difficulties. Real gratitude is something far stronger. It's a call to proclaim the great truths of our faith whether times are good or bad.
Thanksgiving (the act, not the holiday) can pull our lives back into alignment with the truths we believe. We're thankful God made us. We're grateful for his forgiveness and his care. We're glad we have a purpose. Everything good in our lives is a gift from the God who loves us. The more we give thanks, the more thankful we feel. To praise God when we are in trouble is to light a fire in the midst of the darkness.
Mark Buchanan explains that
"thankfulness is a secret passageway into a room you can't find any other way.... It allows us to discover the rest of God--those dimensions of God's world, God's presence, God's character that are hidden, always, from the thankless. Ingratitude is an eye disease every bit as much as a heart disease. It sees only flaws, scars, scarcity. Likewise, the god of the thankless is wary, stingy, grudging, bumbling, nitpicky."1
Paul instructs the Thessalonians to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Paul knew about all circumstances. Just months prior to his letter, the Thessalonians had to smuggle him out of their city by night because an angry mob had become incensed by his preaching. Paul knew exactly what the believers there were facing. A few years later, he spoke of being beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, thirsty, hungry, cold, and naked (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). Paul's credentials as someone who suffered give him the right to speak to us about giving thanks in all circumstances. If it wasn't for what he endured, it would be so easy to disregard his advice.
Notice that Paul doesn't say to give thanks for all circumstances. He's not telling us to thank God for our difficulties. He is saying we should be thankful in the midst of our circumstances. Rather than focusing on our circumstances, thanksgiving helps us transcend them by reframing the narrative. Paul could have taken his many afflictions as a sign that God had abandoned him, but that's not how he reacted. Instead of focusing on his sufferings and building a narrative of complaint around them, he focused on God and built a narrative of trust around him. Paul's unshakeable trust kept his eyes focused on God's goodness rather than on all the difficulties he faced.
- Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), 67.
