Good afternoon,

1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 -Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,

There was a time that I thought that this passage seemed so unreasonable, especially at times of hardship where your mind is so dominated by the present pain and frustrations of life. Especially a command that we rejoice always! So have you or do you still believe that such a command is unreasonable?

If you look at the verse that commands us to also never stop praying to God, it alludes to never breaking that intimate connection of knowing our heart and our God. That in order to always rejoice means to always have our minds stayed on Christ. Forcing us to think about the goodness of God though we may be in the worst of conditions!

If we had to wait on our conditions to be great in order to rejoice always then we wouldn’t need intimacy with Jesus, or some of us would never rejoice! Challenge yourself whether prayer is intense and intimate enough that you find things in your salvation to rejoice over. There can be so many things to rejoice over even in the toughest of times. Prayer as a lifestyle opens our eyes to the goodness of God, usually in things we cannot physically see!

In His Love, Ld