Give Thanks
Posted on August 6, 2015 by Graeme Wilson in Victory Call
Ann Voskamp says:
“Joy is always a function of gratitude and gratefulness. And gratefulness and gratitude is always a function of perspective, of seeing. So in everything, can I have the perspective that God has? In our own flesh, in our own humanness, we really can’t. We have to wear the lens of the Word; we have to be that steeped in Scripture. Without the lens of the Word to perceive the world around us, the world twists it; it warps.
“If we can really root our day in the Word of God so that the incidents and events around us, we don’t perceive them and see them through our human eyes…the Scripture really forms our sight and our understanding of everything so that what we encounter during our day, we see that through God’s Truth and His Word and we say, “I can give thanks in this situation because I know God to be good.”
“’I can give thanks in this situation because I know that God takes my suffering and He is using that to conform my character; to make me more like Jesus.’
“Without God’s Truth, we can’t see correctly.
“So, yes, thanks is tied to sight but our sight always has to be tied to Scripture, otherwise, it’s not sight, it’s blindness.
“It will change your heart to give thanks.”
So, dear sisters, my encouragement for us today is two-fold:
1. Be in the Word so that as you encounter people, places and things, situations and circumstances we can do the next thing…
2. Reminder, not to forget, to give thanks to God simply because He is God and He is good.
Stephanie Dale
Stephanie D. Paul serves as part of the Addiction Recovery Team at America’s Keswick as Director of Women of Character. She has been married for over 30 years to Sesky Paul who is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy. They have two grown children. Her single focus in ministry at Keswick is to image Christ in grace and truth to wounded and hurting women, encouraging them to make Jesus the truest Lover of their soul and the One in whom all hope lies.