Hard Eucharisteo

"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”  (Job 2:10 NIV)

Day 7 of gratitude.  If you have been reading my devotions daily, you know I have decided to take the whole month of November to focus on being grateful.  I have been using a calendar from Ann VosKamp which suggests different catagories of things to be thankful for and posting the on Facebook and I am enjoying that.  But I have also been keeping a gratitude journal by my side and jotting down the little things all day long.

And God is good.

But what does that mean, "God is good?"  Does it just mean he is good when I find wonderful, feel-good, fuzzy-wuzzies to write down in my journal?  In my journal I wrote:  "a warm home on a cold day with the touch of a button."  What if that button had not worked?  What if the heat was on the fritz?  Would that mean God is not good?

I wrote: "the first sip of morning coffee."  What if the coffee had tasted bad?  Would that mean God is not good?

And then there are the huge things... school shootings, war, starvation, slavery of the worst kind.  Does this mean God is not good?  Or are these in some way also good gifts from a good God?  Ann VosKamp talks about "hard eucharisteo."  Giving thanks for things when we do not feel the grace, the joy, the thanks.  Giving thanks to God when our devestated hearts want to curse him instead.

Ann talks about needing to look through a different lens... God's lens.  But I only partly agree with her.  I don't think these things that hurt so many people are from God's hands.  After all, we are not all puppets on heavenly strings.  We have free will.  But I do think that God works through and in tragedy and evil  I think the hard Eucharisteo is in finding God's response to the terrible things that happen in our lives.  God is good in spite of the bad that happens.

But then... couldn't the good things I am thankful for come from the free will of people as well?  Yes! But the good that people do is in response to a graceful and loving God... even if they don't realize that they are responding to God.  And we give thanks to God that he brings out this response in his children.

Hard Eucharisteo.  I don't ever see myself giving thanks for things that hurt others.  But I can give thanks that God will move to comfort that hurt and bring good out of it.

Father,
Help us to see you when it looks like you are not there.  And when we find you, help us to help others to see you too.  Amen.