Thanking God for What Wasn't

Often,  we find ourselves thankful for God's outward blessings in our lives.  Good things like financial boons, a new car, or relief from a burdensome debt can create a euphoria of thankfulness in our lives that we can and should express openly.  However, what about the things that never happened?  I'm thinking of our past, perhaps long ago pasts that never took place or happened the way we might have wanted at the time?  Have you ever stopped and thanked God that He orchestrated the events in your life the way He did even though you didn't get what you wanted at the time?  You should.

In I Thess 5:18 Paul the apostle commanded us to:

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

 I can give you a list longer than my arm of things that I pursued that never took place before I became a Christian.  As I look back I can see from my vantage point today that God spared me from some of the worst possible decisions I could have ever made.

When I graduated from high school, I began a downward spiral in my life that could have and should have resulted in death on several occasions.  How I survived through those days I cannot tell you, but I can assure you that God was steering my life even when I thought I was in complete control, or in many cases out of control.  I never recognized this fact until long after I became a believer in Christ.  I have mistakenly thought that up to the time I became a Christian that God was not involved in my life or my personal decisions at all.  I falsely assumed that He was as far from me as I was from Him.  However, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The fact is, He was there all the time.

Late in the summer of our first full year out of school, an old high school friend and I were scheduled to drive his new sports car out to LA to work with his uncle.  (What I didn't know is that about a month and a half before we were to leave, I would become a Christian and my life direction would take a dramatic turn.). When my buddy showed up at my door to go, I was no longer interested.......at all.  In reality, I had already decided to go in a completely different direction before he showed up, but the reality of my decision caught him completely by surprise.  I don't know what would have happened had I left for LA that day, but I am grateful I didn't.  That first year of my Christian life turned out to be the most important of my new life.  That same year I dealt with some key life issues that could have never been resolved had I been living out of the will of God for my life.

Don't allow the devil to tempt you about your past and the things you either did or did not do before you came to Christ.  Whether it was a lost relationship, a lost job, or some other lost opportunity, God may very well have spared you from a lot of pain and suffering that He was actually protecting you from as He was bringing you to Himself for salvation.  If you reading this and are not yet a believer, He still is.

As believers, we need to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness for sometimes what wasn't just as much as what is!

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