What does it mean, to give thanks in all circumstances?

In First Thessalonians chapter five, the Apostle Paul closes with a list of things that every Christian ought to do (vv. 12-22), but can't do in our own strength or by our own sheer will. Perhaps we can accomplish some, or all that's on this list, but it would only be a temporary appearance of godly character rather than a faithful and continual walk. For we know if we do not abide in Christ, we will not bear His fruit. And any true godly quality we exhibit is a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit within us (1 Cor 2:5), not from our flesh that continually desires the ways of this world.

I often refer to my physical trials as a gift from the Lord and something He has seen fit to work in my life for my greatest benefit. And often, I get questions and comments from people who are outraged by my proclamation that a good and loving God would bring pain into my life. They tell me I'm rather foolish and audacious to claim God would do anything besides make me healthy, wealthy and happy. But that's not what God says.

"For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men."

~Lamentations 3:31-33 (ESV)

In Psalm 119 verses 67 and 71, the psalmist sees the good purposes of afflictions in this life: they keep us from going astray and give us deeper understanding and appreciation for God's holy statutes. The writer of Hebrews also echos this in chapter 12 when he talks about God's loving and faithful discipline, which is painful at the time, but for those who endure and are trained by it, they will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

~Romans 5:1-5 (ESV)

Wow! Who doesn't want to build endurance, character and hope? Everyone, both believers and non-believers aspire to such a high and noble stature, but this can only be obtained by divine providence; by the power of God's Holy Spirit that indwells the children of the Most High God.

I would be lying if I didn't admit the hardships of these 10 years, with the past five encumbered by many hospital admits, five surgeries, countless procedures and tests, and the acquisition of more specialists than there are colors in the rainbow. Constant physical pain, and I mean pain on the scale from 5 - 10 on good days, every day, non-stop (up until recently) has really worn on me. It was always something, one thing after another. I was either tearing a muscle, a tendon, or an organ wasn't working right or my blood work was out of whack...again. It was a constant dance for my doctors to try to figure out what would help me without causing something else in my highly precarious system to malfunction.

And I'm supposed to be grateful for this? Yes!

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the thing that are unseen are eternal."

~2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV)

Did you hear that? Did you hear what our heavenly Father said here? He said that He makes even the most agonizing and grievous things in this life work for our benefit! So then, if God uses even the "bad" experiences to work for our greater good, then the question is, why is suffering a bad thing if it's working good in us and for us—for this life and the one to come?

If this doesn't give you reason to be grateful for whatever you may be suffering today, consider Hebrews 5:7-8, "In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered." We are not greater than Jesus (Lk 6:40), so if He "learned obedience through what He suffered" how much more will we learn? Besides that, let's do a reality check here. Jesus didn't deserve one iota of suffering, but we deserve more suffering than we will ever know because God poured out His wrath on His Son instead of us.

In view of this awesome mercy and grace from God, we should rejoice in the freedom of our salvation and give thanks to God in all and for all circumstances. Our circumstances don't determine our joy; Jesus does, and He's already sealed it by giving us His Holy Spirit.

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid...I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world."

~John 14:27, 16:33 (ESV)

P.S. I almost forgot. For those who've been praying and have asked about my heart issues; the meds are working and I'm doing well. Thank you for your prayers and thank you for asking! ♥

I look to the Lord.

"Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for You have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy." (Psalm 61:1-3, ESV) In my current situation, my "enemy" just happens to be my own body.

My literal heart is faint. As many of you know, the Lord has allowed, in accordance with His good and perfect will, for my body to suffer many things these past 10 years. Now with five surgeries within five years (I didn't write about my kidney stone surgery and stent last year...I just didn't feel like it, sorry), I have another issue that requires extensive medical attention. I have a heart arrhythmia.

I have what's called premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). I've actually had them for the past five years, with about one year where they completely went away. They started up again this past year, but similar to when they started, they were benign, as most PVCs are. But because God has blessed me with extremely wise and kind doctors, my cardiologist did a full workup (stress echo, blood work and 24-hour Holter monitor). All tests looked good and the 24-hour Holter monitor only showed 13 PVCs occurring in one day. I didn't have any symptoms either. They were just annoying.

About four weeks ago my PVCs began behaving a bit differently. Rather than come and go, they came and stayed. They came all day, every day with increased frequency from every other heart beat (bigeminy) to every three heart beats (trigeminy). I began to have symptoms (which I never had before): lightheadedness, breathlessness, and near fainting. My blood pressure began to drop, especially with exercise and my resting pulse danced around the high 50s and low 60s.

By God's providence my yearly physical with my PCP was scheduled a week after these constant PVCs began and she ran an EKG. It didn't look good, so she sent it to my cardiologist who saw me in his office the next day. They agreed I needed to start a beta-blocker (Metoprolol XL succinate). We tried it for a week, but it wasn't working, and my blood pressure (96/57) and pulse rates (fluctuated from the mid 30s to high 50s) were too low. So they told me to stop taking the Metoprolol and come in to get hooked up to a 24-hour Holter monitor so they could compare it to last year's.

Did I have a pity party in the midst of all this? Yes, I most certainly did. Did I get a bit depressed, a little angry and exacerbated that these PVCs couldn't just be like all the other ones I've had for the past five years? Yes I did. Did I overstay my welcome at my pity party? By the grace of God, no, I didn't.

Those of us who've been given a new life in Christ have the freedom to choose—to look at ourselves or to look at the Almighty.

"I waited patiently for the LORD; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD."

~Psalm 40:1-3 (ESV)

I'm so very grateful the Lord lifted me out of the miry bog of self pity because yesterday, I wound up in the Cardiac ED and was kindly treated there for four hours. The Cardiac ED is quite nice and they take you in and begin treating you immediately rather than spending most of your time in the waiting room. I was hooked up right away to an EKG, had blood work and a chest x-ray done along with an IV put in place so they could slowly give me three doses of Metoprolol to get my PVCs under control.

The doctor at the Cardiac ED contacted my cardiologist's office and discovered that my 24-hour Holter monitor showed that I was having 24,386 PVCs in one day. Anything that's above 20,000 per day is too much. So as usual, it seems I have to be the overachiever (wink). They switched me from two Metoprolol succinate (24-hour extended release tablets) to two to three Metoprolol tartrate (12-hour tablets), hoping this will help reduce the amount of PVCs I'm having to decrease heart damage.

My wonderful nurse Andrea from my cardiologist's office has taken fantastic care of me with the other doctors in the practice since my cardiologist is out of the country for a couple of more weeks. The next steps are to get an echo (echocardiogram) to make sure my heart hasn't weakened, and a visit with an electrophysiologist (a cardiologist that specializes in the electrical functioning of the heart that causes arrhythmias).

Why am I sharing all this? I'm sharing this for two primary reasons:

"What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all His people.

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come Home with shouts of joy, bringing His sheaves with him."

~Psalm 116:12-14, 126:5-6 (ESV)

May all who know the Lord Jesus, return to Him with a harvest of righteousness, sown by His love, in our hearts, extended to others (2 Cor 5:20, James 3:18).

Ah, Facebook, our beloved friend and greatest foe. What are we, as Christians to do with Facebook? Whose face do we choose to display—ours, or Christ's? Whose life is magnified on our personal timeline and news feeds? What do we mostly share and who have we chosen to surround ourselves with by accepting or making friend requests?

Are we enticed by the world and encumbered with its dealings (politics, our jobs, our personal rights, physical health, and beauty)? Are these worldly entanglements the prevalent "face" that everyone sees?

I'm not suggesting that sharing pictures of us, our families, and the life God has given us is a bad thing. And I'm not suggesting we never share anything about politics,  our jobs, religions freedoms, or healthy lifestyles. What I'm doing is questioning: Is it the things of God or the things of this world that mostly populate our personal timeline as well as our news feed where we're greatly influenced (whether we like it or not) by what we see, hear, and read?

We're commanded and strongly warned in Scripture to choose our company wisely (1 Cor 15:33). Nowadays, our "company" not only includes people we physically invite into our homes, but also the company we virtually invite into our homes via the all-too-easily-accessible internet, our televisions and even our "smart" phones, that often contributes to our dumbness and numbness to reality (this is another topic for another day).

Depending on how we start our day (we either give our first to the Lord or to ourselves), and how we choose to spend our time, drastically effects whose face we end up displaying on Facebook—Christ's, or ours.

We can choose to begin our day with Jesus Christ, or we can choose to begin our with social media so we can have our egos fed and agendas pushed forward. We can choose to open up the Word of God, consume a heavenly feast from our Lord, concluding, we've tasted and seen that the Lord is indeed good. Then, we can choose to remain seated and be still so we can meditate on the sumptuous meal from the Bread from Heaven—the Word of God. Or we can begin our days with God's Word, but rather than remaining still before the Lord, allowing our spiritual food to settle and strengthen us, we can quickly pop up, check it off our "religious duty" list and walk away unchanged.

Some of the choices I make to get my heart, mind, and spirit united with God's Word is through singing hymns, reading the Scripture associated with it, and listening to good sermons by faithful preachers and teachers of the Word, like the one below with Alistair Begg (Truth For Life).

Isn't it amazing that God had this passage written more than 2,000 years ago, but it perfectly describes our world today...especially on Facebook?

There's so much in this life to be fearful of: loving someone, because they may not love you back; rejection from family, friends, co-workers and even other Christians; public humiliation; being ignored, forgotten and used.

I don't want to be afraid of what others think of me, will do to me, or not do to me (Gal 1:10).

I don't want to be afraid of never being physically healed. I don't want to be afraid that my doctors may not always know exactly the right thing to do (Prov 2:6).

I don't want to be afraid of giving up on ministry opportunities or public services because of my faith and abandon to Christ and His Word. I don't want to be afraid of that phone call, text or email where someone tells me that I'm too narrow-minded of a Christian for their feel-good, man-centered ministry (Gal 2:20).

I don't want to be afraid of speaking the truth in love, just because it's not the truth someone wants to hear (Prov 27:5-6).

"I tell you, My friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!"

~Luke 12:4-5 (ESV)

The only fear I want to have is for the Lord God Almighty. Not afraid to be near Him, but have a holy and awesome fear of Him—knowing who He is, what He can and has every right to do to me; yet He withholds evil and only gives me good, because of Jesus Christ.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life."

~Romans 5:1, 10 (ESV)

Fear of God is the only healthy fear. All other fears are crippling. But the fear of God causes us to be humbled by His mercy and grace, while strengthening us to rejoice in His exceeding kindness toward us who are in Christ Jesus. 

The fear of God is sobering and brings any human being into right relationship with Him as we see Him as He is, and not as we would like Him to be (e.g., warm, fuzzy, feel-good, not-very-holy deity).

I want to let go of all my fears that inhibit me from fully living in the freedom Christ died to give me. I want to live in God's perfect love that casts out all fear, because fear has to do with punishment (1 Jn 4:18). And since I am in a right relationship with God; forgiven and free, why should I fear what man might do or take away from me? I shouldn't.

Therefore I resolve to:

"Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed His name. They shall be Mine says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up My treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him."

~Hosea 3:16-18 (ESV)