Singing Praise to God - No Matter What
Special Gratitude Edition
Guest Post by Jane Paramore
I come from a long line of complaining women. You know the type. She always manages to see the lack, the slip up, the weak spot, the unfortunate aspect of every situation. I suppose because I’d been redeemed by the blood of Jesus and had the Holy Spirit living in me as a result, I began to see this ugly part of myself. I prayed that God would remove that tendency from my personality.
As I grew in my knowledge of the Word of God, I noticed that whenever the writers of the epistles told us to take something out of our personality or our way of living, they followed it up by saying that we should put something else in its place. Simply removing something would be like digging a hole in the sand; more sand is just going to rush into the new space. We need to put something in the hole to keep more sand from filling it up. If I was going to remove a complaining spirit, I needed to replace it with something else. Over the years, I have learned to replace complaining with giving thanks.
I learned early on that Scripture commands us to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18). That seemed a tall order, as I had trained myself to see the bad in every situation. I did meet some people who would thank God straight out for an awful situation. They seemed to view these things as opportunities through which God would make something great happen. If I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that I felt that was a bit disingenuous. It felt like forced thanksgiving. It felt like telling God what to bring out of a bad situation, like twisting His arm until He did what was acceptable to us.
So I did not give thanks and felt smug in my honesty. I did try, here and there, to find back door blessings in bad situations.
When Matt Redmon came out with his song “10,000 Reasons,” I was taken with the notion of being able to sing praise to God at day’s end no matter what was happening. I decided to make my own list of 10,000 reasons to praise God. I actively looked for things that caused me to feel thankful towards God, things that made me praise Him. This proved harder than I thought! Then along came Ann Voskamp.
In her book One Thousand Gifts, Ms. Voskamp encourages us to take notice of and praise God for everyday blessings. She goes as far as to say “all is grace.” Everything, she says, is a blessing from God. She discusses the “ugly beauty,” those things that do not stand out as blessings unless we look more closely.
Scripture tells us that every day we live was planned out before the beginning of time by the God Who loved us and chose us in Christ. Every single thing that touches our lives is part of that plan. Everything that comes to us comes through the filter of His hands and is a part of His plan for our salvation and our ongoing sanctification in which we are made more like Jesus. Contrary to what appears to be western belief, God’s focus is not on the kindness and gentleness of our circumstances, but rather on what we are becoming. Our character is much more important to Him than whether or not our days are pleasant and easy. This is true love. It seeks not to envelop us in comfort, but to transform us, and bring us closer to Himself.
Much of this transformation takes place in our yielding to whatever He chooses to allow into our lives, in thanking Him for all of these things, whether ugly beauty or easily seen beauty. I do not understand exactly how it works, but I’ve come to understand that actively thanking Him in the midst of all circumstances and for all of the small blessings He bestows on us, enables us to more clearly see His blessings around us. Does God send more blessing because we are thanking Him? I don’t really think so. I think our eyes are merely opened to all of the things around us that He has done for us, for His good pleasure and for our good.
