A woman leaving the worship service said to the minister, "I enjoyed the sermon." "Don't thank me. Thank the Lord," said the minister. "It wasn't that good," the lady replied. (Robert S. Smith, Kane, Pennsylvania, Christian Reader, "Lite Fare.")
As we continue our series on "How to face life's challenges", I come to the dare that we do so with a thankful attitude. Now I am aware that some of you have been through extremely difficult circumstances which it is very hard to look back on with thankfulness at all, and that others are in the midst of such suffering today, and I do not in the least mean to minimise your pain or pretend that it's easy to give thanks. However I would be omitting something essential to the message of the Christian gospel if I did not ask us to face the challenge to be thankful. St Paul wrote, "Be joyful always, pray at all times, be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16) Paul himself had suffered persecution which included imprisonment, whippings, shipwreck, illness, and the death of friends. He seems to have suffered from a painful eye problem which plagued him all his later life, which not even prayer shifted. He saw and experienced plenty which would lead many people to bitterness and to recrimination, but he concluded from his experience & his knowledge of Christ, that thankfulness was the best response to make to all this. He learned that approach from Jesus himself, of whom Luke records this story..... Read Bible:Luke.17:11-19.

1. Count your blessings & be thankful. Luke records Jesus' disappointment that only one of the ten he healed came back to give public thanks to God of the blessing received. The point is underscored by the fact that the thankful man was a Samaritan, a foreigner, whom the Jews would have despised as not being part of God's chosen people. Yet he expressed his thanks. Are we not sometimes at least guilty of a similar lack of thankfulness. As we tried to remember at harvest last week, we are blessed in so many ways. We have plenty of the necessities of life - food, shelter, clothes - and lots of life's luxuries. Compared to most people who have ever lived & to the majority alive today, we are wealthy & secure. Yet do we not often take this for granted and focus on what we don't have instead of what we do have? As the proverb says, Don't be sorry if the bottle is half empty. Be glad that it is half full. Are you a half empty of a half full person in how you see life? The old hymns is right in challenging us to count our blessings and to give thanks for them, as Jesus taught.

2. Be truthful about hardship, but give thanks. We are not called to pretend that suffering is not real or insignificant, but we are asked to give thanks even when life is hard. I came across this story this week. "A famous English Bible scholar named Matthew Henry was once attacked by thieves and robbed of his purse. He wrote these words in his diary: "Let me be thankful. First, I was never robbed before. Second, although they took my purse, they didn't take my life. Third, although they took my all, it was not much. Fourth, let me be thankful because it was I who was robbed and not I who did the robbing."" (John Yates, "An Attitude of Gratitude," Preaching Today, Tape No. 110.)
The bible tells the story of a rich, good man named Job, who lost everything and became sick to the point he stank so badly he was banished to the city rubbish heap. His wife said to him, ""Why don't you curse God and die?" Job answered, "You are talking nonsense! When God sends us something good, we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?" In spite of everything he suffered, Job said nothing against God." (Job 2v9-10) We are called in the face of suffering to affirm that God is a loving heavenly Father, who cares for us, and has our best in mind. If he allows us to go through pain and darkness, he still loves us, and will bring good out of it. So although we must not say that pain & suffering are good, we should remain thankful to God through the bad times as well as the good. Our trust in God is being tested, and if we can hold on in faith we will find deeper blessing than we can imagine. As Paul says, "We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) If we believe that we can thank God in all circumstances, even if it's sometimes through gritted teeth. So St Paul writes, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, always give thanks for everything to God the Father." (Ephesians 5:20)

3. Pray for relief, but thankfully. Next week we are going to consider the call to meet life's challenges with persistent prayer. But I must today note that such prayer needs to be made in a thankful spirit. St Paul, again, says, "Don't worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart." (Philippians 4:6) Prayer needs to be made in an attitude of thankfulness if it is to be effective. The writer Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) said, "Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done, whether you like it or not." St Paul wrote, "Be persistent in prayer, and keep alert as you pray, giving thanks to God." (Colossians 4:2) "Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father." (Colossians 3:17)

4. Thankfulness will change us for the better. If we take a thankful attitude with us into every day, we will be surprised at how much of a difference it will make to the way we look at things, and therefore to how we receive them. John R. Mac Duff (1818-1895) wrote, "Cultivate the thankful Spirit! It will be to you a perpetual feast." If we approach life thankfully our spirits will be nourished and we will become a blessing to others. Would you rather live with someone who approaches life thankfully, or with someone who's always complaining? I like this little story: "When my brother and sister-in-law were expecting a baby, I asked my four-year-old niece, Justina, "What do you want, a baby brother or a baby sister?" "Aunt Donna," she chided, "sometimes you just gots to take what God gives ya."" (Donna Patton, Hillsboro, OH. Christian Reader, "Lite Fare.")

5. The Holy Spirit cultivates thankfulness. You cannot become a thankful person in your own strength. You can be thankful at times against your feelings, but how much better to have a thankful heart, from which thanks flows naturally. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. "What I say is this: let the Spirit direct your lives.... the Spirit produces love, joy, peace..." (Galatians 5v16, 22) If our hearts are full of the joy of the Spirit we will have cause for thankfulness whatever our circumstances. So let us ask him to cultivate his attitudes in us. Face life's challenges with God-inspired thankfulness, and you will be in a better position to change things that you can change and to live with what you cannot.