“As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing … “ ~ 2 Corinthians 6:10a
“Giving thanks always for all things … in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ Ephesians 5:20
These two seeming paradoxical verses fuse to form our “purple stone” verse which can lead you into a new life of freedom from your complaining heart. Paul wrote so often of rejoicing “in the midst of” that I [Eugenia Price, the author] was finally driven to find out how to do this! Sorrow and trouble come to us all. Paul was familiar with them both, and yet he dealt almost recklessly with the holy paradox of “giving thanks always for all things…”
From contact with those who had learned to give thanks in the face of tragedy and trouble, from my own experience, from time spent on my knees and crying to God for a down-to-earth method for learning to do this, I was given some concrete answers.
First of all, I came to see that the thankful-hearted Christians I knew are those who have accepted their lot without complaint. They had nothing in their attitudes or manner which said: I’m too precious for life to have treated me this way!” Betty Elliot, whose beloved Jim was murdered in a jungle for the cause of Christ, wrote that “He continues to give us His joy”! Not that God was enabling her to endure it, but He was “giving His joy”!
About that time I read an old book of Oswald Chambers in which he said: “Joy is God in your blood.” I saw that God was in the blood of Christ already poured down from the Cross. Then a fresh time of suffering came to me. But this time I “accepted in” with this joy made available to me through the blood of Christ. Allow the Holy Spirit to open your heart to this:
“Jesus … who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross … Jesus [who said], My joy I leave with you. Count it all joy. Count it all joy.”
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