But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

Job 16:5 (NIV)

 

What Thanks ...?!

by Cathy Vinson

 

Interesting way to need empowerment and ability...finding adequate inner resources to give back to God! Such a lavish spillage of joy, joy so tight and extensive within Paul, Silas and Timothy, that they were helpless unto it. "What thanks...?"; where can they find the type of thanks that can
repay? All they know is that they MUST!!

With such a fullness of joy regarding this beloved people at Thessalonica, they had to do something! "CAN we render..." (from dunamis - to be able, to have power)...did they have the ability to repay in thanks? It's one thing to find ability towards God when in need of joy, quite another thing altogether to find adequate resources towards Him when so filled with it. It's one thing to cast cares off from upon us, a perplexing one indeed to cast worthy thanks from upon us. All we know is our souls require that we MUST get it back to its Blessed Source!

Drenched with such joy, and while we are swimming in something so vast and wonderful and not of ourselves, we wonder how we are swimming. How can we deal and also "deal back" with it?

"What thanks...?" Have we found it, you and I? the type that actually gives back to God? How do we get such heaps of explosive joy off of ourselves to where all Glory rightly and desirably belongs? Can we?

Oh, God, help us with this helpless pursuit...to adequately give back, to render, to repay, to return to You. May it ever give You great glory as we endeavor to find the answer to our unanswerable dilemma: "what thanks...?"

"For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God...?"

(1 Th 3:9)

 

Have we found it, you and I? the type that actually gives back to God? How do we get such heaps of explosive joy off of ourselves to where all Glory rightly and desirably belongs? Can we?

Send a note to Cathy Vinson , the writer of this devotion.

Other Whispers from the Wilderness Devotions are found HERE

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