FAY ROWE

Have you ever been told you should thank God for everything that comes into your life, no matter what?

Have you ever found it almost impossible to do so? With conviction, at any rate?

Was it almost as if you were lying to God?

There's a good reason for that: God never said we should thank him for everything because he is not the giver of all things that happen. Some of that is in our hands or the hands of others. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.

Can Jesus be our example? What did he give thanks for?

On the mountainside he lifted bread and gave thanks, for the provision, maybe? For the miracle of multiplication that he knew would come? For the men whose hands would offer the sustenance and who left all to follow? For the people who needed the bread?

At the tomb of Lazarus he lifted his eyes and gave thanks, "that you have heard me, Father." For the people's ears he gave thanks at that moment, he said, "...for you always hear me." He's always thankful. Maybe at this moment thankful for the miracle, for the joy of returning a man to his family. For giving temporal life as well as eternal.

Outside Chorazin and Bethsaida, the cities of his greatest miracles and his greatest rejection to date, he "answered" the coldness by saying, "Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have revealed the truth to the babes, the open hearted and honest ones." Was this thanksgiving to help him focus on the good, perhaps? To still the voice of the accuser?

At that special last supper with his friends, knowing the betrayal, the pain, the separation he would suffer alone, even without his father's comfort, he lifts bread once more. One text says he blessed and broke it. Another says he gave thanks.

Then the cup. He gave thanks for the cup of his new covenant. Perhaps for the brothers-to-be around him who would be the first to break the bread of life to the world that waited unaware. To us.

Not thanks for the betrayal, not thanks for the unbelief and rejection, not thanks for the pain and separation.

Thanks for the loving kindness that sent him here. Thanks for the faithfulness that would bring him through to victory.

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord ... to declare your lovingkindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night" (Psalm 92:1-4).