Is It Possible to Give Thanks in Everything?, episode 159

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast and also help and hope for your own life journey. Are you ready for the holidays? Often holidays are challenging when you love a prodigal, but sometimes good things, new peace, hopeful attitudes can happen, and hopefully what we are talking about today will be helpful. Remember if God gives you an idea as you listen, be sure to jot it down.

0:40 A year ago, as a typical tropical storm came through, I was concerned about some roof areas that had begun to leak. Sure enough, four leaks appeared. Good ones that had been repaired. One in the garage, when I walked out there, it looked like a waterfall down the wall. Uh-oh. So two months later, I had a new roof put on and then had all the leaks and damage repaired. Then Hurricane Milton arrived here in Florida. I slept through it and was thrilled that all the repairs that I had done had held.

1:24 Until the next morning, when I discovered the most persistent leak had reappeared, the roofer is coming back next week to try a new way to prevent leaking there. Taking care of the roof and leaks has always been my wonderful husband Steve's responsibility, but now it was mine. My thoughts and feelings were resisting it. I did not want to handle all of this, but my response after years of learning from God and practicing what he said was to say, thank you, Lord.

2:06 When you love a prodigal, you know about hard, challenging days, months, years, the financial strains as well as other things like natural disasters and wars around the world. We often live in a constant state of uncertainty and feeling out of control. The children of Israel certainly lived with uncertainty and out of control. Coming into the unknown, famine, slavery, wars, persecutions, often they whined and complained, but sometimes they remembered what God had said.

2:49 Then we read these amazing words in Psalm 95. Come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him, for the Lord is a great God, a great king above all gods. He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land too. Come, let us worship and bow down.

3:30 Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. So even in hard times they learned, but did not always practice, but did sometimes to praise God, to worship him, to give thanks for what he had done. Our natural response in times of uncertainty and in life with the prodigal and the fears and frustrations we encounter is to name everything that is wrong, to complain about all that we don't like.

4:13 And that can be helpful in healing, to name our fears and displeasure, and our God receives our honest laments. But he also encourages us to give thanks in everything. Seriously, how do you do that? We remember that God is God and God is good. I have discovered a helpful phrase that works wonders in my heart and mind. The phrase is, look for the good. I admit it is easier to see the good in retrospect after something has happened, and I have been able to do that as our former prodigal is in a good place.

4:59 But God convinced me to make this a habit early in our wilderness journey. I didn't do it quickly, easily, or consistently, but choosing to look for the good and give thanks has transformed me. Here are just a few of the good things that I have discovered as I have looked for the good in some hard situations. I've learned about mercy and grace, to receive them and to give them and to see how they changed me and my relationship with my prodigal.

5:39 Mercy and grace. Good outcomes. Love. God's love is unconditional. He loves us no matter what we do or don't do, and he asks us to love that way too. Gratefully, he shares his love with us because sometimes our prodigals are hard to love. Prayer. I thought I knew how to pray, but our prodigal drove me to my knees and into a much deeper relationship with God, and prayer became a way of life for me. Perseverance.

6:19 I had to keep relying on God to carry me through the darkest times, and he did. And gratitude. As I learned to give thanks in our prodigal journey, I also learned to do the same in every situation, large or small. Not that I always did it, but I knew to do it, and I usually and increasingly could say thank you in everything. It's good to look back and discover the good that has come from the hard, and to say thank you, Lord. But God also wants us to give thanks in the midst of the hard times.

7:01 When we have no idea what the outcome will be, still he says, give thanks in everything. Recently, I had that opportunity. A friend and I were in Spain going to a conference. The person meeting us put us in an Uber and told them where to go. About one-third of the way, the Uber driver noticed on her phone that the ride had been canceled. Who would cancel the ride? Well, it was an accident from the person who put us in there, and the next Uber she was getting. It was canceled.

7:43 We offered to pay our driver my credit card or with cash. Her only response was no Puedo, no Puedo. I knew enough Spanish to understand. I can't, I can't. She pulled to the side of the road, a very busy road, got out, took all of our six bags they were filled with material for the conference, took them out of the truck, put them on the side of the road, and then ordered us to get out of her car. We had no idea where we were. We didn't speak Spanish. I laughed. I have found laughing at hard things or scary things or surprising things is a good thing.

8:28 It helps me. And I said, thank you, Lord. My friend did not think it was funny, but she left me there on the side of the road with six bags of luggage and headed out to see where she could find a taxi. She succeeded and we got there safely. The taxi driver was awesome. For me, that thank you, Lord, came out because I had been learning and practicing for years. And so instead of getting upset or fearful or distressed, thank you, Lord, was the right response. Even though we had no idea if we were in danger, probably we were, or how we in our luggage could find our way.

9:16 We got the taxi. We arrived safely at our destination and I'm grateful for choosing to give thanks. It's hard a lot of times, but he says, give thanks in everything. So I invite you to join me in looking for the good to give thanks, even when we can't see the good that God will be doing. As the psalmist exhorts us, come, let us sing to the Lord, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him.

9:59 We're going to talk next week some more about giving thanks. I think you're going to really like it. But don't wait. Begin today. Begin to say thank you. And just to get in the habit in the practice, every day write down something new that you're thankful for, whether it's a very hard thing or a wonderful thing, but to make yourself get in the practice of saying thank you, Lord. God bless you.