Give Thanks in Everything! I Thessalonians 5:18

In everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
I Thessalonians 5:18

My guess is that most Christians do not obey this command, and they do not do so because of rebellion against God, but because they view it as a practical impossibility. Sort of like the verse right before it: "pray without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17). As I explained in this previous post, the command to pray is for repeated prayer, not constant. The command to give thanks in everything is not as easy to resolve, but this is my take. I do not believe that God is saying that we must give thanks every moment of every day for literally everything that happens in our lives. Although some may argue with me based on Hebrews 13:15. Rather, I believe that God is saying whether the circumstances of our life are positive or negative, from our perspective, we are to give thanks to God.

Now there is I think another reason some Christians refuse to obey this command of God. They see this as a command to thank God for things that they see as incredibly hurtful and or even sinful, and they can't bring themselves to thank God for those things. This reminds me of a true story of a lady whose husband was suddenly and tragically killed in a car accident. She went for counsel to a very well-known evangelical leader who counseled her to thank God that her husband had been killed. His reasoning was that this is commanded by the verse we are looking at and that it was necessary for her emotional healing. To her credit, she complied. But I would disagree with this counsel on two basis'. First, the verse does not say "give thanks for everything", but "give thanks in everything". Now one may ask what difference this makes and if this difference is significant, and I would say "yes" to both. God is not asking us to thank Him, for instance, for being robbed. What He is asking us to do is thank Him in the midst of this injustice for what He will bring out of it for good. God is not directly responsible for us being robbed by another. This is a sinful act by a person responsible for their own actions. Could God have prevented it? Yes, but He allowed it for good, loving and wise reasons that we may need time and perspective to understand. In the meantime, He asks us to trust Him and His plans for us. But He is not so insensitive and callous of our feelings and human frailty to ask us to be thankful for the terrible and sinful things that happen to us. If we take this command in a wrong way, at some point, we may become angry and bitter with God for asking us to do something that He hasn't in reality asked us to do.

My youngest brother is in a life and death struggle with cancer right now. I have not and will not be thanking God that he has cancer. Because I do not believe that God gave it to him. This cancer is a result of the sinful, fallen and imperfect world that we live in. Having said that, God has allowed this to happen and I believe He loves my brother more than any of us, and has the best of plans for him. That is what I am thanking God for and what I will continue to thank God for. I believe with all my heart that God is going to glorify Himself in this terrible situation and do what is absolutely best for my beloved brother. For that I say, "Thank you Father, and thank you Jesus!"