884 - 905.

I'm borrowing Ann Voskamp's words from her blog today.  Wondering how she manages to put what is on my heart more skillfully into words that I ever would.

... “If God really works in everything, why don’t we thank Him for everything? Why do we accept good from His hand — and not bad?”

This is hard. Maybe the hardest of all. She is young. She has much to come.

I have held dying babies. Eaten with those who live on the town garbage heap. Wept with women who’ve been violated, with the bankrupt, the heart crushed, the terminal. And this never stops being true: Neglecting to give thanks only deepens the wound of the world.

Doesn’t God call His people to a non-discriminating response in all circumstances? “[G]iv[e] thanks always and for everything” (Ephesians 5:20 ESV).

If I only thank Him when the fig tree buds — is this “selective faith”? Practical atheism? What of faith in a God who wastes nothing? Who makes all into grace?

And yet — is thanking God for everything… thanking Him for evil?

Rivulets run down glass, blurring my husband and all our seeded prayers. What do I accurately see and know?

When we bought the enemy’s lie in the beginning and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Satan hissed then that we’d really see and know what is good and evil.

But the father of lies, he’d duped us in the whole nine yards. Though we ate of that tree we did not become like God.

We have no knowledge of good and evil apart from God. My seeing, it is not omniscient. Can I really see if a death, disaster, dilemma, is actually evil? Mine is only to faithfully see His Word and wholly obey Him in this. Therein is the tree of life.

Is this why He commands “giv[e] thanks always and for everything”? Because to thank God in all is to refuse Satan’s relentless lure to be god-like in all.

To thank God in all is to bend the knee in allegiance to God Who alone knows all.

To thank God in all is to give God glory in all. Is this not our chief end?

When I only give thanks for some things, aren’t I likely to miss giving God glory in most things?
Murmuring thanks isn’t to deny that an event isn’t a tragedy and neither does it deny that there’s a cracking fissure straight across the heart.

Giving thanks is only this: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God.

Our thanks to God is our witness to the goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.

... His perfect love casts out all fears and leaves only thanks and I listen to her sing it, like a chorus with the rain: Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.

Like a song from the belly of the fish, like a Jonah refrain echoing off the walls of the whale: “But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you…” (Jonah 2:9 ESV)

Like a haunting, holy answer to what she asks, the song of the saints, always thanksgiving — practicing here the only song that will be sung at the very last of time, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving… to our God” (Rev. 7:12 ESV).

I have the words of Laura Story's Blessings again flooding my heart as I read these words.  Giving thanks in ALL things ... not just the things we desire.  Not just the things we see as good.  In all things, admitting that WE are not the judge of what is good or bad, joy or sadness, evil or blessing.

This is an easy week for me to recount the hard times ... but to find, instead of fear, thankfulness.

884. sleepless nights that cause me to call out to Him, to recount His goodness, to beg for His mercy, to remember His faithfulness and His word
885. reminders that I am not God
886. the inability to see into the future that makes me cling more desperately to Him
887. threats that remind me that He has overcome
888. relinquishing my ability to control
889. having to learn to trust at a much deeper level than I had known was possible
890. letting go of the facade that I am strong
891. hot tears that bring sweet release
892. the hope of a future that is good
893. knowing that He alone sees what is ahead
894. trusting the heart when I cannot understand His hand
895. rainy days
896. fears that are overcome and not defeating
897. being vulnerable
898. singing new songs
899. identifying with the hurts of others because I've known hard times as well
900. knowing He never betrays, but always protects
901. the way He is acting in my life today is the most loving thing He can do because He IS love
902. letting go of my plans and holding more loosely to the future
903. seeing the beauty in today
904. walking through the colored leaves that have DIED to line the ground.  The beauty did not come without the death.
905. knowing my life is in His hands, not mine.

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17-18