In EVERYTHING...give thanks

"Perhaps she thought, it was because she'd given up being a noun, and was being transformed into a verb." 

In the Mountain by Jan Karon

"Last night alone in my study, God gave me four words that Saint Paul wrote in his second letter to the church at Thessalonic. Four words that can help us enter into obedience, trust, and closer communion with God himself, made known through Jesus Christ. "Here are the four words. I pray you will inscribe them on your heart." "In Everything...give thanks! That's all that's this mornings message. It's the hook. It's the key. Everything is the word on which this whole powerful command stands and has its being. There'll be times when you wonder how you can possibly thank Him for something that turns your life upside down; certainly there will be such times for me. Let, us then, at times like these, give thanks on faith alone...obedient, trusting, hopig, believing. Perhaps you remember the young boy who was kidnapped and beaten and thrown into prison, yet rose up as Joseph the King, ruler of nations, able to say to his brothers, with a spirit of forgiveness, 'You thought evil against me, but God meant if for good, that many lives might be spared.' Better still, remember our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered agonies we can't begin to imagine, fulfilling God's will that you and I might have everlasting life."

In the Mountain by Jan Karon pg. 311-312

I am reading this series by Jan Karon (14 books) for the 2nd time. I started randomly on book seven. I stopped on these pages to remind myself and the reader of this post, about this very big truth that Paul wrote. 

Simple but profound.

Friends let's pray about this EVERYTHING. God help me to remember to give thanks in everything.

Amen.