Chapter 15
Chapter 15
THANKSGIVING VERSUS COMPLAINING
"In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in ChristJesus concerning you'*— 1 Thessalonians 5:18.
Thanksgiving and complaining—these words express two contrasting attitudes of God's children regarding His dealings with them. These attitudes are more powerful than we tend to believe.
They either further or frustrate His plans of comfort and peace toward us. The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.
God's command is, '*In everything give thanks."
The command is emphasized by the declaration, **for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
It is a positive command. If we want to obey God, we must give thanks in everything.
There is no getting around it.
But a great many Christians have never realized this. Although they may be familiar with the command, they look upon it as a sort of concept of
perfection which mere flesh and blood could never be expected to reach. Unconsciously perhaps, they change the wording of the passage and make it say, '*be resigned" instead of, '*give thanks." They say, **in a few things" instead of, **in everything," and they leave out altogether the words **for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
If brought face to face with the actual wording of the command, these Christians will say,
*'Oh, but it is an impossible command.
If everything came directly from God, one might do it perhaps.
But most things come through human sources and often are the result of sin. It would not be possible to give thanks for these."
It is true we cannot always give thanks for the things themselves, but we can always give thanks for God's love and care in the things. He may not have ordered them, but He is in them somewhere. He will cause even the most painful to work together for our good.
The apparent causes of the wrong may be full of malice and wickedness, but faith never sees these causes.
It sees only the hand of God behind them.
They are all under His control. Not one of them can touch us except with His knowledge and permission. The thing that happens cannot perhaps be said to be the will of God. But by the time its eflFects reach us, it has become God's will for us and must be accepted from His hands.
Turning Trials To Triumplis The story of Joseph illustrates this.
Nothing could have seemed more wicked or more contrary to the will of God than Joseph being sold to the Ishmaelites by his cruel brothers.
It would not have seemed possible for Joseph when he was being carried off into slavery in Egypt to give thanks.
And yet, if he had known the end from the beginning, he would have been filled with thanksgiving.
Being sold into slavery was the direct doorway to the greatest triumphs and blessings of his life. At the end, Joseph could say to his brothers, **But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good"
(Genesis 50:20). To the physical eye, it was Joseph's wicked brothers who sent him into Egypt; but Joseph, looking with the eye of faith, said, **God did send me."
We can all remember instances in our lives when God caused even the hardest trials to work together for our good.
I remember when a trial was brought upon me by another person.
I was filled with bitter rebellion and could not see any reason to be thankful in it.
But like Joseph, that very^ trial provided the richest blessings and the greatest triumphs of my life.
In the end, I was filled with thanksgiving for the things that had caused me such bitter rebellion
before. If only I had faith enough to give thanks ai first, how much sorrow I would have been spa-ed.
Unfortunately, the greatest heights to which most Christians in their short-sightedness seem able to rise is to strive for resignation to things they cannot change. They pray for patience to endure life's diflSculties. The result is that thanksgiving is an almost unknown exercise among the children of God.
Instead of giving thanks in everything, many of them hardly give thanks in anything.
Christians as a whole are a thankless group. The world considers it very rude for one man to receive benefits from another man and fail to thank him. Why then, is it not just as discourteous to fail to thank God? There are people who would never forget to send a note of thanks for any small gift from a friend. Yet, they have never given God thanks for one of the innumerable benefits He has been showering upon them their entire lives.
A great many not only fail to give thanks, but they do exactly the opposite. They allow themselves to complain and murmur about God's dealings with them. Instead of looking for His goodness, they seem to delight in picking out His shortcomings. They think they show a spirit of discernment in criticizing His laws and His ways.
We are told that **when the people complained, it displeased the Lord" (Numbers 11:1). But we are tempted to think that our complaining, because it is spiritual complaining, cannot dis-
please Him. Since it is a pious sort of complaining, we think that it is a sign of greater zeal on our part.
We feel that we have deeper spiritual insight than is possessed by the ordinary Christian.
But complaining is the same whether it is on the temporal or the spiritual level.
It always has in it the element of faultfinding. Webster says that to complain means to make a charge or an accusation. It is more than merely disliking the thing that we have to bear. It contains the element of finding fault with the agency that lies behind it.
If we carefully examine the true source of our complaints, we will find they are founded on faultfinding with God. We secretly feel as if He is to blame somehow. Almost unconsciously, we make mental accusations against Him.
Praising The Giver Thanksgiving always involves praise of the giver. Have you ever noticed how often we are urged in the Bible to praise the Lord? It seemed to be almost the principal part of the worship of the Israelites. *Traise the Lord; for the Lord is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant"
(Psalm 135:3).
This is the continual refrain throughout the Bible. There are more commands given and more examples set for the giving of thanks than for doing anything else.
It is very evident from the whole teaching of Scripture that the Lord loves to be thanked and praised just as much as we do. Our failure to thank
Him for His good and perfect gifts wounds His loving heart, just as our hearts are wounded when our loved ones fail to appreciate the benefits we enjoyed giving them. What a joy it is to us to receive thanks from our friends for our gifts. Certainly it is a joy to the Lord also.
* 'folPaul exhorts the Ephesian Christians to be lowers of God, as dear children" (Ephesians 5:1).
One of the exhortations he gives, in connection with being filled with the Spirit, is this, ''Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"
(Ephesians 5:20).
"Always for all things" is a very inclusive expression.
It is impossible to suppose it can be whittled down to mean only the scanty thanks, which is all that many Christians manage to give.
It must mean that there can be nothing in our lives which does not provide a reason for thanksgiving.
No matter who or what may be the channel to convey it, everything contains a hidden blessing from God.
Paul tells us that "every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving" (1 Timothy 4:4). But it is very hard for us to believe things are good when they do not look that way. Often the things God sends into our lives look like curses instead of blessings. Those who cannot see below the surface judge by the outward appearance only. They never see the blessed realities beneath.
God's Medicine Even when we realize that things conae directly from God, we find it very hard to give thanks for things that hurt us. We all Icnow what it is to thank a skillful physician for his treatment of our diseases, even though that treatment may have been very painful. Surely we should give thanks to our divine Physician when He is obliged to give us bitter medicine to cure our spiritual diseases or to perform a painful operation to rid us of something that harms us.
But instead of thanking Him, we complain against Him. We generally do not direct our complaints against the divine Physician Himself who has ordered our medicine.
Rather, we argue against the bottle in which He has sent it. This bottle is usually some human being whose unkindness, carelessness, neglect, or cruelty has caused our suffering. This person has actually been only the instrument that God has used for our healing.
Common sense tells us that it would be foolish to complain against the bottles in which the medicine prescribed by our earthly physicians come to us. It is equally foolish to complain about the situations that are meant to teach us the lessons our souls need to learn.
When the children of Israel found themselves wandering in the wilderness, they murmured against Moses and Aaron. They complained that Moses had brought them into the wilderness to kill
them with hunger. (See Exodus 16:3) In reality, their complaining was against God. He is the one who brought them there, not Moses and Aaron.
The psalmist, in recounting the story afterward, referred to this murmuring against Moses and Aaron— **Yea, they spake against God"
(Psalm 78:19). Divine history takes no account of apparent causes, but goes directly to the true cause behind them.
All complaining is in reality speaking against God, whether we realize it or not. We may think, as the Israelites did, that our problems have come from people. Therefore, we feel free to murmur against the causes which we think brought about our trials.
But God is the great Cause behind all apparent causes. The apparent causes are only the instruments that He uses. When we murmur against these, we are really murmuring against God Himself. These causes are powerless to act, except by God's permission.
When the Lord heard the complaining of His people, ''He was wroth" (Psalm 78:21). His anger came up against them ''because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation" (Psalm
78:22). All complaints mean just this—that we do not believe in God and do not trust in His salvation.
The Sacrifice Of Thanksgiving The psalmist says, "I will praise the name of
God with a song, and magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs"
(Psalm 69:30-31).
A great many people seem ready and willing to oflFer up some great sacrifice to the Lord. But they never realize that a little genuine praise and thanksgiving offered to Him would please Him better than all their great sacrifices.
The sacrifice of thanksgiving is an act of worship just like any other religious act. The sacrifice of thanksgiving was one of the regular sacrifices ordained by God in the book of Leviticus.
**Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing" (Psalm 107:21-22). ''By him therefore let us ojflfer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name" (Hebrews 13:15).
It is such an easy thing to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving that one would suppose everybody would want to do it. But somehow, the opposite seems to be true. If the prayers of Christians were recorded for a day, we would find that like the ten lepers who had been cleansed, nine offer no genuine thanks at all.
Our Lord was grieved at these ungrateful lepers and said, ''Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to
give glory to God, save this stranger" (Luke 17:1718). Will He have to ask the same question regarding any of us? We may have often wondered at the ingratitude of those nine cleansed lepers. But what about our own ingratitude? Do we not continually pass by innumerable blessings without notice?
Instead, we fix our eyes on what we feel to be our trials and our losses. We think and talk about these until our whole horizon is filled with them, and we almost begin to think we have no blessings at all.
Imagine how this must grieve the Lord. A child who complains about the provision his parent has made wounds that parent's heart beyond words.
Some people are always complaining, nothing ever pleases them, and no kindness ever seems to be appreciated. We know how uncomfortable the company of such people makes us feel. We also know how life is brightened by the presence of one who never complains, but who finds something to be pleased with in every situation.
Far more misery than we imagine is caused in human hearts by the grumblings of those they love. God's children never dream how severely they wound His heart by their continual murmuring.
It is often despairingly said of fretful, complaining individuals upon whom every care and attention has been lavished, **Will nothing ever satisfy them?" How often must God turn away, grieved by our complaints, when His love has
been lavished upon us. We should try, for His sake, to be cheerful and content despite the circumstances.
A girl had to undergo very painful treatment for a serious disease. The doctors dreaded hearing her cries of pain during the procedure. But to their amazement, not even a moail escaped her lips.
Instead, she smiled at her father who was with her and uttered only words of love and tenderness to him. The doctors could not understand it.
When the worst was over, one of them asked how she did it. She replied softly, **I knew how much my father loved me, and I knew how he would suffer if he saw that I suflFered, so I tried to hide my sulBFering, and I smiled to make him think
I did not mind.'' Can any of us do this for our heavenly Father?
Complaining During Circumstances Job was a great complainer. We may think that if ever anyone had good reasons for complaining.
Job did. His circumstances seemed to be full of hopeless misery. **My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands" 0ob 10:1-3).
We can hardly be surprised at Job's complaint.
And yet, if he could have seen the divine side of all
his troubles, he would have known that they were permitted in the tenderest love. His trials were to bring him a revelation of God that he could not experience by other means.
If Job could have seen this outcome, he would not have uttered a single complaint.
Rather, he would have given triumphant thanks for the trials which were to bring him such glorious results. If we could see in our heaviest trials the end from the beginning, we would give thanks instead of complaining.
The children of Israel were always complaining about something. They complained because they had no water. When water was supplied, they complained that it was bitter to their taste. We likewise complain because the spiritual water we have to drink seems bitter to our taste. Our souls are thirsty, and we do not like the supply that is provided. Our experiences do not quench our thirst, and our religious exercises seem dull and unsatisfying. We feel like we are in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. We have turned from the fountain of living waters, and then we complain because the cisterns we have dug out for ourselves hold no water. (See Jeremiah 2:13)
The Israelites complained about their food.
They had so little confidence in God that they were afraid they would die of starvation. Then when the heavenly manna was provided, they complained again because they hated the taste of such light food.
We also complain about our spiritual food. Like the Israelites, we have so little confidence in God that we are afraid we will die of spiritual starvation. We complain because our preacher does not feed us or because our religious privileges are very scanty. Or we complain because we are not supplied with the same spiritual meat as others who seem to be more highly favored. We covet their circumstances or their experiences. We have asked God to feed us, and then our souls dislike the food He gives. We think it is too light to sustain or strengthen us. We have asked for bread, and we complain that He has given a stone.
The provision our divine Master has made of spiritual drink and spiritual food is always the best for us. We would be thankful for it if we realized this. The difficult part is that we must believe now, before we see the results, that the Shepherd knows the best pasture for His sheep. Surely, if we did, our hearts would be filled with thanksgiving and our mouths with praise, even in the wilderness.
The story of Jonah gives us a wonderful illustration of this. His prayer of thanksgivinjg out of the belly of the fish is a tremendous lesson.
**I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
. .But I will sacrifice unto thee with a voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I
have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:23,9).
No depth of misery, not even the belly of hell, is too great for the sacrifice of thanksgiving. We cannot give thanks for the misery, but we can give thanks to the Lord in the misery, just as Jonah did.
No matter what our trouble, the Lord is in it somewhere. Of course. He is there t6 help and bless us.
Therefore, when our souls faint within us because of our troubles, we have only to remember this and to thank Him for His presence and His love.
The Benefit Box It is not because things are good that we are to thank the Lord, but because He is good. We are not wise enough to understand things such as true joys or sorrows. But we always know that the Lord is good.
His goodness makes it absolutely certain that everything He provides or permits must be good. Therefore, we would be heartily thankful for it if only we could see it with His eyes.
In an excellent little tract called **Mrs. Pickett's Missionary Box," the story is told of a poor woman who had never done anything but complain all her life. She thought that she had no benefits to give thanks for when she received a missionary box with the words written on it, '*What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" She was asked by her niece, who believed in being thankful, to put a penny into the box for every
blessing she could discover in her life. Here is the aunt's response:
'* * Great benefits I have!' says I, standing with my arms akimbo, an' looking that box all over.
'Guess the heathen won't get much out of me at that rate.' An'
I jest made up my mind I would keep count, jest to show myself how little I did have.
*Them few pennies won't break me,'
I thought, and I really seemed to kinder enjoy thinkin' over the hard times I had.
**Well, the box sat there all that week, an'
I used to say it must be kinder lonesome with nothin' in it; for not a penny went into it until next missionary meetin' day.
I was sittin' on the back steps gettin' a breath of fresh air when Mary came home an' sat down alongside o' me an' began to tell me about the meetin', an' it was all about India an' the widders there, poor creatures, an' they bein' abused, an' starved, an' not let to think for themselves—you know all about it better'n I do!—an' before I thought, I up an' said ** *Well, if I be a widder, I'm thankful I'm where
I kin earn my own livin', an' no thanks to nobody an' no one to interfere!'
*Then Mary, she laughed an' said there was my first benefit. Well, that sorter tickled me, for I thought a woman must be pretty hard up for benefits when she had to go clear oflF to India to find them, an'
I dropped in one penny, an' it rattled round a few days without any company.
I used to shake it every time I passed the shelf, an' the
thought of them poor things in India kep' a-comin* up before me, an'
I really was glad when I got a new boarder for me best room, an' felt as if I'd oughter put in another. An' next meetin', Mary she told me about China, an'
I thought about that till I put in another because I wam't a Chinese. An' all the while I felt kinder proud of how little there was in that box. Then one day, when I got a chance to turn a little penny sellin' eggs, which I warn't in the habit of, Mary brought the box in where I was countin' of my money an' says *' 'A penny for your benefit. Aunt Mirandy.'
**I says. This ain't the Lord's benefit.'
**She answered, 'If 'tain't His, whose is it?' An' she begun to hum over somethin' out of one of the poetry books that she was always a readin' of God's grace is the only grace.
And all grace is the grace of God.
''Well, I dropped in my penny, an' them words kep' ringin' in my ears, till I couldn't help puttin' more to it, on account of some other things I never thought of callin' the Lord's benefits before. An' by that time, what with Mary's tellin' me about them meetin's, an' me most always findin' somethin' to put in a penny for, to be thankful that I wam't it, an' what with gettin' interested about it all, and sorter searchin' round a little now and then to think of somethin' or other to put a penny in for, there really come to be quite a few pennies in the box, an' it didn't rattle near so much when I shook it."
There is a Psalm which I call our Benefit Psalm.
It is Psalm 103, and it recounts some of the benefits the Lord has bestowed upon us. We are urged
* 'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits"
(Psalm 103:2).
Our dear sister's Benefit Box had taught her somenot to forget them. thing of the meaning of this Psalm. All her life she had been forgetting the benefits the Lord has bestowed upon her, but now she was beginning to remember them.
Have we begun to remember ours? If during the past year we had kept count of those benefits for which we had actually given thanks, how many pennies would our boxes contain?
Rejecting The Wrappings We sometimes sing a hymn of thanksgiving with * 'Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the the chorus, Lord has done."
I wonder whether any of us who sing it so heartily have ever kept the slightest record of our blessings or even knew that we had i any.
The trouble is that God's gifts often come to us wrapped up in such rough coverings that we are tempted to reject them as worthless. Or, the messengers who bring them come in the guise of enemies, and we want to shut the door against them.
But we lose far more than we know when we reject even the most unlikely blessing.
We are commanded to **enter into his gates with
thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise"
(Psalm 100:4.) The giving of thanks is the key that opens these gates more quickly than anything else.
The next time you feel dead, cold, and low-spirited, begin to praise and thank the Lord.
List the benefits He has bestowed upon you and thank Him heartily for each one. See if your spirits do not begin to rise and your heart begin to warm.
Sometimes, you may feel too disheartened to pray. Then try giving thanks instead. Before you know it, you will find yourself rejoicing in the abundance of His lovingkindnesses and His tender mercies.
One of my friends told me that her little boy flatly refused to say his prayers one night. He said there was not a single thing in all the world he wanted, and he did not see what was the good of asking for things that he did not want. His mother said, '*Well, Charlie, suppose then we give thanks for all the things you have got."
The idea pleased the child, and he willingly knelt down and began to give thanks. He thanked
God for his marbles and for a new^ top that had just been given him and for his strong legs that could run so far. He thanked God that he was not blind like a little boy he knew and for his kind father and mother and for his nice bed and for one after another of his blessings. The list grew so long that at last he said he believed he would never get done. And when finally they rose from their knees,
I he said to his mother, with his face shining with
happiness, '*Oh, mother, I never knew before how perfectly splendid God is!"
If we followed the example of this little boy, we too would discover, as never before, the goodness of our God.
The Glory Of The Lord It is very important to notice how much thanksgiving had to do with the building of the Temple. When they collected the treasures for the Temple, David gave thanks to the Lord for enabling them to do it. When the Temple was finished, they gave thanks again. And then a wonderful thing happened as the trumpeters and singers were praising and thanking the Lord. The house of the Lord was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of it. The glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.
When the people praised and gave thanks, the house was filled with the glory of the Lord. We may be sure that the reason our hearts are not filled with the glory of the Lord more often is because we do not usually make our voices heard in praising and thanking Him.
If the giving of thanks is the way to open the gates of the Lord, complaining closes these gates.
*The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints.
To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them.
. .of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts" 0ude 14-16).
People who are murmurers and complainers make more hard speeches against the Lord than they would like to admit. We should not be surprised that the judgment of God, instead of the glory of God, is their reward.
There are hundreds of Bible passages concerning praising and thanking the Lord.
It is amazing how they can have been so persistently ignored.
Read the last seven Psalms and form your own opinion. They are simply overflowing with a list of the things for which we are called upon to give thanks. All of them are things relating to the character and the ways of God, which we dare not dispute. They are blessings which we continually forget because we take them for granted and never give thanks for them.
Beginning Your Praise-Life The psalmist knew how to count his many blessings and name them one by one. He would have us do likewise. Try it, and you will indeed be surprised to see what the Lord has done. Go over these Psalms verse by verse and blessing by blessing. See if, like the little boy of our story, you confess that you never loiew before how splendid
God is.
The last verse of the book of Psalms, taken in connection with the vision of John in Revelation, is very significant. The psalmist says, ''Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord"
(Psalm 150:6). In Revelation, John, who declares himself
to be our brother and companion in tribulation, tells us, '*And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying.
Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever" (Revelation
5:13).
The time for universal praise is sure to come some day. Let us begin to do our part now!