“Lord, don’t listen to these people! They are crazy. I am not thankful we are broken down. I want to get to the retreat.”

I’d joined two sorority sisters on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a Christian conference for college students. The dilapidated school bus our group rode began to sputter and wheeze when we hit the mountains. With each breakdown, one by one various students offered prayers, “Lord, thank You for this situation. We trust You to bring good from it.”

I gave thanks for good things—not for things that broke when you needed them to work. This group’s prayers of thanksgiving during the first couple of breakdowns had fascinated me. But now I shivered, and my toes ached with cold. In the back of the bus, my silent prayers took a different tone.

As the stops grew more frequent and my toes became more frozen, their prayers ceased to amuse me. I decided to tell God my viewpoint. He listened; our bus revived, and we chugged up the mountain to join the sleeping conference.

What I didn’t realize at the time was the students were right. God used that broken down bus to benefit me and many others that weekend more than all the great talks we enjoyed.

Give Thanks in All Things?

Giving thanks in all things was a new concept for me. Over the weekend I observed it played out in other ways. One man lost his class ring and didn’t’ fuss and fret. These students experienced God’s peace in ways I hadn’t.

Their peace of mind and thankful attitudes made me thirsty. I joined a Bible study where they read the Bible as if it were God writing to them. I had read my Bible for years, but filtered it through my philosophy of life. What agreed with my views I kept, what didn’t, I spit out. No wonder I got more questions than answers.

Changing how I read the Bible ignited my faith and transformed my life. The Bible began to make sense. Fresh hope and peace replaced the uncertainty and dread I had felt for the future. This all began with the witness of thankful hearts on a broken down bus.

What they offered by faith I now offer from sight. “Thank You, Lord, for allowing that bus to break down and using it for my good.”

What irritation in your life might be God’s blessing in disguise? Why not thank Him today by faith?

Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20 NIV).

Thankful

A friend just let me know my new book Little Faith, Big God is now available for pre-sale! Whoohoo.

I hope you enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving.

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Happy Thanksgiving,

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

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