Have you ever thanked God for what you DON’T have?

We know how to give thanks to God for the good things God has given to us – family, shelter, job, friends, church, etc. But we are not apt to give thanks to God for the absence of things.

For example, have you thanked God for not being deathly ill, not being homeless, not being deaf or blind, not being crippled, not having lost a child, etc? After all, we are to give thanks to God in all things (1 Thess 5:18). And this includes the things that God has not given to us. But that means we must be thankful also for the GOOD things that God has NOT granted us. Because if He had, it would not be a good thing for us at this time. For example, we can be thankful that God has not made us rich because that may make us proud and fall away from God. We can be thankful that we have a minor physical ailments because that keeps us coming to God for help. We can be thankful that our children are rebellious because that reminds us of our own rebellious nature and God’s love for us anyway.

Let’s thank God for the good things we have as well as the bad things we don’t have. But let’s go one step further: let’s thank Him for the good things we don’t have because God saw to it that it is better we do not have them yet.

PH