Psalm 136:1 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” In other words, be grateful to God because he has it all under control and the way he does things is good. Telling someone to be grateful is really easy, but actually being grateful and praising God is not as easy. It’s even less easy when we’re facing hard times or when things don’t go our way.
I’m no exception to this struggle. When my first job ended last summer I started spending a lot of time looking for more work. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t think it would be as hard as it was. I collected, filled out, and handed in application after application, but none of them got me a job.
However, in the process of my job hunt I received an offer from a family friend about working as his intern. He needed someone who could help with social media and social networking; two areas that happened to be something I’m really interested in. I was so excited! God was good and I was grateful he’d given me this opportunity.
Unfortunately, the night after the family friend and I had finished working out the final details of my internship he called and let me know he had been laid off. I had lost my internship before it even officially started. Suddenly God wasn’t so good anymore, but I knew he wasn’t going to leave me. When God closes a door he usually leaves a window open somewhere. I just had to find my window.
Well, maybe I didn’t have to find my window. My mom did. She noticed a local restaurant was taking applications and picked one up for me. I filled it out and handed it back in. I started praying so hard for this to be the blessed application. God heard my prayers. About two weeks later the restaurant called me and offered me a job.
Sure this job isn’t perfect, but I’m so grateful to God that I have a job at all, and that all the little imperfections about this job don’t matter. I didn’t see it until after the fact, but having this experience take so long and be so up and down makes me much more grateful than I would have been if this had been easy.
This article begins Daily Gratitude, an on-going column focusing on gratefulness for God’s involvement in our lives.
by Kendall Poorman, Hayden Lake Friends
Kendall, thank you for this wonderful testimony to God’s goodness. This is a great reminder for us to use every event as a window through which to see God. This must be why the Bible urges us to be thankful in all things.