Take your heart full of cares, and get into the presence of the God of peace in heaven, what will be the effect? Will they remain in you there? What are they? Only outside things connected with self. Can you find one sorrow of one individual believer from Abel downwards, of which you could say that sorrow was not in connection with the God of peace? Not that He is the sender of sorrow, but the God of peace, sitting in heaven and causing everything to work together for good to us, taking flesh into the account, sweeping the very ground of the heart, taking strength from the strong, causing pulsation to cease. But is anything terrifying when we get into His presence? No! all is peace in the presence of the God who counts the hairs of our head.
" In everything give thanks." Is there a lust or a single thing in me that I would try to hide from God? No; I would like His knife to cut, to root up every evil, so that I may bear more fruit.
How apt we are to limit thanksgiving to things that we can understand to be good, but we have to give thanks for all things. If we are within the veil and living there, we shall know what it is to give thanks for all that is most contrary to what we should naturally choose. Are there any who have one thing they cannot give thanks for? Whatever that particular thing may be, they have not got into the light of God's presence. If they had, they would know what cause they had to thank God for that very thing, as for all else.