Always be joyful. Keep
on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will
for you who belong to Christ Jesus. I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Ann Voskamp quoted this passage in her blog recently. Then,
I read it in my one-year Bible for October 12. Seeing it twice within a week
caught my attention.
Verse 16 is: Always be
joyful.
This sounds like a command to me and I don’t think God would
command us to do something we can’t do. If He tells me to always be joyful,
then I believe that it is always possible for me to be joyful and that this is
what God desires for me.
Verse 17 is: Keep on
praying.
I hear another command. And, it follows the first one, which
I understand to mean that prayer is related to being joyful. The joy provokes the
prayer; the prayer sustains the joy, or both. Either way, I like how God has
placed these two directives right next to each other.
Verse 18: No matter
what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to
Christ Jesus.
No matter what happens, I can be thankful. God’s will for
me, as one who belongs to Christ Jesus is that I would be thankful. This stirs
my heart to commit to the regular practice of gratitude all over again.
God wants me to be joyful, constant in prayer and thankful. This
is what I hear Him say in this passage, “Be joyful, Jody. Be constant in prayer,
Jody. Be thankful, Jody.”
Why does God link these three things? I think He is trying
to show that they go together. When I practice gratitude through prayer in
every season and situation, I will experience joy in God’s presence. This
sounds good to me.
Still Counting Gifts:
·
#558: Tea and coffee in the morning
·
#559: Having the freedom to wear jeans to work
·
#560: A short work day in a quiet building
·
#561: An afternoon adventure with my parents to
Galena, IL
·
#562: Fall colors that have remained despite
wind and rain
·
#563: New smart wool socks!
·
#564: Window shopping
·
#565: An Italian dinner with two of my favorite
people
·
#566: Finding a coffee shop that made espresso
drinks right before it closed for the day
·
#567: Laughing hard together
·
#568: Car naps
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