A Devotion from John A. Broadus

Give thanks in all circumstances.  
-1 Thessalonians 5:18

Be thankful to God for everything that is pleasant. We so often speak about the religious benefits of affliction that we are in danger of overlooking the other side. It is a religious duty to enjoy every rightful pleasure of earthly existence. He who gave us these bodies desires that we should find life a pleasure.

We work best at what we enjoy. The young should enjoy what they are studying. [But] it is possible that by well-guided efforts they should learn to relish studies to which they were at first disinclined. I sometimes hear young married people say, “We are going to set up housekeeping, and then we can have what we like.” I sometimes reply, “Yes, you may, but what is far more important and interesting—you will be apt to like what you have.” To have what we like is, for the most part, an impossible dream; to like what we have is a possibility and not only a duty but a high privilege.

Be thankful to God for everything that is painful. That may be stating the matter too strongly. Notice that the apostle does not say, “For every circumstance give thanks”; he says, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18). That, surely, need not seem impossible. We may always be thankful that the situation is no worse. With some persons it has been worse. Let us always bless the Lord that, but for his special mercies, it would be worse with us today.

An unpublished anecdote about President Madison [relates that] the venerable ex-president suffered from many diseases and took a variety of medicines. A friend sent him a box of vegetable pills of his own production and begged to be informed whether they helped. In due time came back one of those carefully written and often felicitous notes for which Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson were both famous: “My dear friend, I thank you very much for the box of pills. I have taken them all, and while I cannot say that I am better since taking them, it is quite possible that I might have been worse if I had not taken them, and so I beg you to accept my sincere acknowledgments.” Really, my friends, this is not a mere pleasantry. There is always something, known or unknown, but for which our condition might have been worse. And that something constitutes an occasion for gratitude.