Thanksgiving

1 Thessalonians v. 18 v.
“In everything give thanks.”

Surely this is a hard saying! Am I to thank God for everything? Am I to thank Him for bereavement, for pain, for poverty, for toil? I may believe that the time will come when I sJiaU thank Him; that is an act of faith. But am T to turn faith into fruition? Must I celebrate the victory before the battle? Must I lift up my hands over my dead and say, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast taken away my friend “? Is it possible? is it human? is it desirable? Is it the will of Love that love should violate its own law? Is it pleasing to my Father that loss should be pleasant to me? Is my heart to make no distinction between the sunshine and the cloud? Is not one half of my joy just the absence of pain? if I cease to shrink from pain, how shall I keep my joy? Is it good that I should be told to give thanks for everything?

Be still, my soul; thou hast misread the message. It is not to give thanks for everything, but to give thanks in everything. It is not to praise Grod for the night, but to bless Him that the night is not deeper. Bethink thee; thou hast never reached the absolute depth of any darkness, never come to the step which has no step below it. I have read ‘of the Son of Man that He gave thanks over the symbol of His broken body. What does that prove? That He rejoiced in being sad? No, but that He was not perfectly sad. It tells me that even the Man of Sorrows had not reached the uttermost sorrow. Not for the pain, but for the mitigation of the pain, did the Son of Man give thanks — not that His body was broken, but that it was broken for me. In thine hour of sorrow, give thanks like Jesus. Keep thine eye, not on the step above, but on the step below — the step to which thou hast not yet descended. Look not up at the height thou has lost; look down on the depth thou hast not sounded. There might have been no ram caught in thy thicket. There might have been no dream dreamt in thy dungeon. There might have been no bush burning in thy desert. Herod

M might have come without the sages; Bethlehem might have come without the angels; Judas might have come without the Passover; Calvary might have come without the garden. Thy Father has never allowed the uttermost deep of misery to any human spirit; the cable may creak and strain, but it is anchored within the veil. God never fills the cup of Jesus to the brim; there is always a vacant space reserved for light and air. Is it not written that He has put my tears into His bottle; the quantity of thy griefs is measured; there is a bound which they cannot pass? Thank God for that boundary, oh, my soul.