Thankfulness

Often when I interact with other people, I find myself thinking, ‘You’re weird Danny boy’. I’ve felt that way often about my cancer. When I tell people they are sad and upset.  But I don’t feel that way, and I never really did. This may help to explain why.

Sometime in February I was having constant pain that was keeping me from sleeping well. That made every day life a challenge. On a Saturday I cancelled playing with Eleanor in a praise night event. On the Sunday I was scheduled to speak and I chose a message I had previously given at another church. The message was on the topic of complaining. This is a recap of what I said:

Key Texts:

Numbers 11:1-3

1 Corinthians 10:6,10 “Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not … complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.” 

The lesson from Numbers 11 is that God hates complaining.  It is a sin. We see in the Exodus story that it is an expression of unbelief, and it says to God that He is not good.  It also hurts the people around you. Finally, it hurts yourself.  If you are a complainer, you will feel like you are wandering around in the desert. 

We can’t choose what our circumstances are, but we can choose our attitude. Instead of choosing to complain, we can choose to be thankful. 

Ephesians 5:20 shows us the highest level of thankfulness: “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is graduate level thankfulness; giving thanks for all things.

At the beginning of my cancer journey I was thankful for God’s nearness, and His goodness.  I wasn’t able to be thankful for the cancer.  Now, I can say that I’m thankful for the cancer. I don’t think that the cancer is good, but I know that “all things work together for good to those who love God.” Romans 8:28