A Challenging Practice
Are you up for a challenge?
Verse of the Day
‘My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties, see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!
If your faith remains strong, even while surrounded by life’s difficulties, you will continue to experience the untold blessings of God!’
James 1:2,12 (The Passion Translation)
Today’s Devotional
A few months ago, I spent some time with a woman in order to ask a few questions about my spiritual journey. I wanted godly wisdom from someone with no emotional ties to my situation.
During this conversation, after I had shared some things I was struggling with, she challenged me to do something that I had never considered.
She challenged me to express gratitude to God about my specific challenges. Many times, in the middle of a difficult circumstance, I have practiced gratitude. But it looked more like this:
“God, this situation is hard and I am struggling. But I will still choose to be grateful to you for my home, and my husband, and the fact that you are God (and I am not), and for the birds outside, and for my bed, and for my coffee this morning.”
You get the idea, right? We can choose gratitude even if something difficult is happening.
But that is not what my friend suggested. She challenged me to thank God FOR the difficulty. This was a new practice of gratitude that I had never even considered.
Allow me to give you an example. I tend to have a decent amount of physical pain. Today, specifically, my back is hurting enough that it is distracting. If I employ this new gratitude practice in this moment, it might look like this:
“God, thank you for the pain in my back today. The fact that I can feel anything at all means that I am alive and that you are good. Thank you that the pain reminds me to call on you instead of living in the delusion of self-sufficiency. Thank you for whatever you are trying to teach me through physical pain and help me to be teachable. Thank you for the reminder that my worth to you is not altered by what I can and cannot do.”
Today’s verses from the book of James tell us that difficulties are an opportunity to experience joy. There is joy in choosing to trust that God is doing something, even if I have no idea what that “something” is.
And perhaps by choosing gratitude in the midst of difficulty FOR the difficulty, I will be actively practicing and increasing my faith. Through faith – even while being surrounded by difficulties, according to James- we will continue to experience the blessings of God.
As we enter into this Thanksgiving season, let’s choose to practice giving thanks to God for everything, even the things and situations and people that we wish were different. Because no matter what, He is good. It’s not just how God acts, it’s who He is. But we can’t always see His goodness in the middle of difficulties. This kind of gratitude practice will force us to trust God, instead of trusting that He will give us the outcomes that we desire.
Journal Prompts
What are your current “difficulties”?
How can you thank God FOR those difficulties today? Write it down.