…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NIV)
I’m not quick to push superlatives, but for my spiritual dollar, the most unnerving of all thanksgiving accounts emanated from the walls of Ravensbrück concentration camp north of Berlin during World War II, when Jews and their sympathizers were held mercilessly, often unto death. It could not, of course, leak out right away. Instead the story was told later in the pages of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.
The barracks where Corrie and her sister Betsie slept with scores of other women were infested with fleas. This may be the very reason the account strikes me with such pitiless force. I hate bugs in my face—in my mouth, in my eyes, in my ears. Fleas, gnats, and flies might as well be literal demons.
Yet somehow Betsie thanked God for the fleas. Corrie, who would have understood me, said to her sister, “Betsie, there is no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”
But Corrie and Betsie had just been reading 1 Thessalonians 5, and Betsie replied, “‘Give thanks in all circumstances.’ It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”
Often, we cannot come to appreciation or pleasure or joy until we have done the thanking first.What is part of the place where God has put you? What things war against every ounce of patience and peace that “should” be yours in Christ? Can you say thanks for such things?
There are perhaps three ways to be thankful: Thankful with pleasure and joy. Thankful with appreciation. And thankful somehow.
Many things about the year we are beginning to look back on have forced us into that last category. If we have been able to thank God, it has often been under the heading of somehow. We may find ourselves thanking God for things we never would have considered worthy of thanks before. That’s OK. No, that’s good. Very good. For often, we cannot come to appreciation or pleasure or joy until we have done the thanking first. This was true for Corrie and Betsie, who only later came to realize that the fleas kept the guards away. The women could read their Bible and pray without interruption because the fleas repelled the enemy.
In our minds, many things in life don’t deserve our thanksgiving. Not fleas, for sure. Not dead batteries or double bogeys. Certainly not special holidays compromised by a virus immeasurably smaller than even our politest bites of pecan pie. But God—God in heaven and God on earth—deserves every word of thanks. And it is he who can turn the very worst annoyances and the most grave outcomes into wonders and blessings we would never foresee.
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Jeff Hopper
November 24, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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