1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

         There are so many people searching for God’s will in their lives. They are searching for some “grand” plan and want to do great things for God. None of that is wrong; we should all desire to do great things for God, but the problem comes when all we are doing is waiting and not doing. We spend all our time “waiting” on God and forget the fundamentals of His will for us.

         God desires each of us to “Be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances.” Really these three things go hand in hand. The latter two make the first one possible. Let me explain.

First we must be in constant communication with God. This should be an easy concept these days, with smart phones and twitter and such. We are in communication with everyone else; we must not forget God. He’s the one that directs and guides us through all things. If we are not talking to Him regularly we will not be able to follow His leading and will miss the blessing He has for us.

Next comes thankfulness. So often we are told in the Word that we need to be thankful. We see that thankfulness is tied to all the blessings of God. If we are giving thanks in all circumstances then we are looking for the good in all things. This allows us to see more of God in everything and also to take our eyes off the negative.

So now we are talking and listening to God and getting His guidance in everything. This allows us to be thankful, because we are seeing how He is helping us through and we see more of the positive and less of the negative. Now comes the joy. Joy will actually come naturally at this point since we are looking at the good in our lives.  The bottom line is this: trust God in your life and surrender to His leading. Once you do that the thankfulness and the joy will come much easier.