"...giving thanks always for all things in [the] name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God and Father."
-Always giving thanks. Always. Giving thanks. Always. For all things. 24-7 gratitude, feeling AND expressing appreciation for demonstrated kindness, ours is a heart full of faith and trust which affirms that God is so good, He is always in control, He knows what He’s doing, we always get it good. And so we give thanks - that’s what we do. Those thus filled with His Spirit and consumed with this One Who is consummately good cannot help but live in that place of perfect awareness of His manifold perfections, and that God is, He is here, He’s got this, and He’s working it out for good (Romans 8.28). Christian - do you believe this? You and I need to double down and live into this truth, offering up sacrifices of praise (cuz life doesn’t always feel good), learning to affirm our heavenly Father’s sovereign goodness in all that which concerns us, in all our ways. Truth is, only those who are filled with God’s Holy Spirit, only those who have relinquished control and tapped into His power can fully live into this reality.
-And another thing - Paul says, giving thanks FOR all things. Yes, elsewhere he says IN all things (1Thessalonians 5.18), which many have concluded is a green light to lower the gratitude bar a bit (to a more reasonable 'natural' height) for all those (many) things in life which don't feel so good. Sure, we can still be thankful IN the midst of hardship (i.e. for other things, for the Lord Himself), but this circumstance or thing (thorn-in-the-flesh?) does not make me feel good and so I do not have to be thankful FOR it. That would be disingenuous. And we don't want that. But here is the question: who is ultimately responsible for the thorn in my flesh? Is it just bad luck? Random happenstance? Or is it not true in fact that God is in control? Is He not able to and does He not indeed use hardship and trials and brokenness to further His ultimate purposes in my life, for His glory, to increase the knowledge and celebration of His breathtaking goodness and greatness in and through my life? Actually that's five questions, but just one answer - God. The Lord knows exactly what He is doing, and there is not a single circumstance which comes into our lives which He is not ultimately working for the greater good. Is it not precisely through this kind of unnatural (supernatural!) gratitude in hard times that our faith (that which brings Him great pleasure - Hebrews 11.6), our resolute trust in the Lord and Who He is, shines most brightly in the darkness? This pain in my derrière (real or simply proverbial) is most certainly from the Lord, and He has a very good reason and plan behind it. If it is FROM Him, can I not thank Him FOR it? an we not with Kevin Bacon in Animal House, declare, "Thank you, Sir, may I have another?" No, not in some masochistic stick-your-head-in-the-ground state of denial - may it never be! No, we can thank the Lord FOR the thorn, because it is from Him, He is our good good Father, and this is somehow part of His good good plan for us. Let's raise that gratitude bar back up where it belongs...
-But how are our lives fitting into this ‘always giving thanks for all things...’? Surely the bar is too low. Where is the gratitude? So much malcontent it seems, God’s people grumbling, complaining, discontented, disrespecting - one is forced to conclude either that Christianity doesn’t work, or that God’s people (too many of us) have failed to fully appropriate the life of Christ. This is what Paul is getting at here in this section. Overflowing, unrestricted, unrestrained, uncontainable gratitude is another sure hallmark of the Spirit-filled heart.
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