Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Psalm 100:4

Much of what is happening in our world robs us of peace. So much sickness and sorrow of all forms has invaded our days. Individuals who twist our words and blast our beliefs are unbridled! I just got off the phone with a mother sobbing her eyes out because a court ruled in favor of the guilty party and she was made to look like a bad parent.

The Bible commands us not to be anxious or worried. In fact, it actually declares for us to be thankful: “Do not be anxious about anything but pray about everything WITH THANKSGIVING and the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds” (Philippians 4:6 & 7).

In every situation may we exercise our faith and trust in a Sovereign God and pray with thanksgiving in our hearts so that we can experience peace. When we focus on gratitude and what we can be thankful for, it causes our perspective to shift. We can trust God with the hard situations of life and He in turn will flood our being with His unexplainable peace. How wonderful to a watching world to see a person who should be full of angst to be filled with a tranquil calm and trust instead!

Prayer is vital –but to fully experience His peace, we must come to Him with gratitude. Hard gratitude. Costly gratitude. The kind that trusts He is working for our good, even in unpleasant circumstances . . . the kind that garrisons our troubled hearts and minds with His peace.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Choosing Gratitude

“Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture . . . the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.” Psalm 100:3 & 5