How many times a day do you sit back and rejoice in the varies aspects of life? Do you rejoice in the spendor that God has placed in the world around us? Better yet, are you able to rejoice in God and find something worth rejoicing in when you are at your weakest, in your "Job" period? The Bible tells us in Philippians 4:4 to "Rejoice in the Lord always again I say rejoice." But sometimes rejoicing in God can be a hard thing to do especially when we are feeling at our weakest, when we feel depressed and well oppressed at the same time. When we are at our lowest it seems to take everything in us to simply read the Bible or pray to God let alone rejoicing in Him always.
The chapter proceeds to say dont worry about anything: instead, pray about everything tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. (verse 6). Paul tells us not only do we need to rejoice in the Lord always, but we need to not worry and pray, and then to thank him for everything. Does he want us to thank God for the bad things in life? Thank God for the depression, oppression, cancer, death and more? When we are feeling the feelings we do as humans we find it hard to thank God when we are oppressed. How can we be thankful when we struggle with things like paying bills, or health issues, or when someone we love get hurt in some way. We look at the world and see children being molested, women being raped, men being killed and so much. How can we thank God when there is so much bad happening in the world?
We go through hard times and struggles not to break us down but to bring us up. Have you noticed how much better you feel when you smile or laugh during a hard time?
When Pauls says thank him for all he has done it is in my opinion that he's saying thank God for the past good and bad he has done since we learn from everything. When we start to thank God for things in our lives, even if it is something small as waking up each day those hardships seem to get better and not as bad. As we pray to God telling him the things we end we should praise him and as verse 4 says Rejoice in the Lord...I repeat rejoice. Hard as it may be we need to rejoice in him and honestly when it seems to hard that's when we should turn to each other. Its hard to stop and through the hardtimes and struggles to say "thank you God for allowing me to have a car" or "Thank you God for being there" something so small makes a difference in how you feel. Rejoice in God, rejoice in his love and kindness. Allow him to wrap his arms around you and rejoice.
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