I don’t know what to be grateful for that day but now I think I know.
It was a bad day that I needed to runaway for some coffee rescue. Little did I know, that day will literally changed my life now. It was so ironic that while I am having a breakdown, this cup screams this phrase right in front of my face:
“Grateful For ________.”
What a perfect timing for a much needed encouragement! It is as if my day couldn’t be more worse than that. God knows that was a heartbreaking day for the record.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
One of the easiest verses to memorise yet the hardest to actually apply in real life. It is just irrational to say that you’re grateful and you feel blessed when you’re really hurting inside.
As far as being a logical human is concerned, it doesn’t really work like that. It shouldn’t be like that, right? Looking back to that verse that “we ought to give thanks in everything because it is the Lord’s will” for us makes it even more painful. How can we be grateful for some things we don’t even deserve? Why should we?
I don’t know what to be grateful for that day but now I think I know.
Job 2:10 KJV
But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
Yes, I am a Christian but I fail too. I still have my moments where I question God. I doubt Him. And it is so easy for me to turn my back just like what a prodigal daughter would do. At least in my heart, I’ve done it many times, questioning why would even God allow some things to happen in my life?
Romans 7:24 KJV
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
How foolish. Do I even deserve something good? Last time I checked, I’m still a wretched sinner who is always desperate for grace. With that fact, how can I even say I deserve something good when I am just no good. But even if that’s the case, my troubled heart complains, “Can’t we just have a simple and normal life? A less evil one perhaps? But, no. It’s not gonna happen. All because of sin.
Knowing that I am just a sinner saved by God’s amazing grace – who am I to breathe one sigh? Who am I to even utter such claims when my life could end in just one snap?
1 Corinthians 15:10 KJV
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
I am in awe to think that God has been so patient with me until now. His loving chastisement made me remember that He has given me faith. And that I actually asked Him to increase it over and over again. And where I am now is just one of those forgotten answered prayers of my yesterday.
So now I acknowledge my own madness of thinking that I am in control. I am again humbled by God’s presence. Rebuked by His higher wisdom that He is up to something that my mind cannot utterly fathom without an ounce of faith.
So what am I grateful for?
I’m grateful for faith.
I am grateful for what had happened (and what needs to happen) because it just proved that I have at least a little faith to fight for. I need to double check if I am still believing to see or have fallen to the trick of seeing to believe. I need to know if my faith is still anchored to the One who holds and doesn’t let go. I surrender to all the hard and difficult things I don’t understand because through all of it, I feel and appreciate more the goodness of the Lord.
Psalm 27:13 KJV
I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
I was an impulsive, denying Peter. I thought I can make it to the shore by my own. With fainting eyes I started to sink – again and again. As I cried for salvation from my own foolishness, still the Lord’s hand is there saving me just in time.
Matthew 14:30-31 KJV
But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. [31] And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
I am grateful for grace that day. Even though it made my heart broken into thousand pieces, it still managed to beat again. Just a proof that weeping may endure in the night but joy comes in the morning.
This one thing I know, that by faith we shall see. By faith we shall have the power to be grateful in everything for God meant it all for good. What my human eyes don’t see, by faith my heart knows. I believe and I trust that He – the all knowing, all powerful and ever present God, is still there working it all for me.
And for sure, I should be grateful for coffee. Coffee is still the best thing in the world. Coffee saves the day. Thank God for coffee!
Romans 8:28 KJV
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
AB 