By Clement Harrold

November 27, 2025

Believers and non-believers alike sometimes balk at the demanding nature of St. Paul’s exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 5: “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (vv. 16-18). In a world as broken as ours, can we really be expected to rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances?

It goes without saying that St. Paul’s words are particularly hard to accept when God’s blessings seem absent from our lives. Perhaps our life is currently marked by intense grief, debilitating illness, or severe depression; in times such as these, we might well question what our attitude toward God should be. After all, if we’re supposed to praise and thank God during the good times, doesn’t that give us some justification for blaming Him—or at the very least not thanking Him—during the bad times?

The problem with this question lies in its unstated premise. What that premise holds, in effect, is that the God of the universe is no different from the human actors who fill our day-to-day lives. If a woman does her husband some kind deed, he ought to thank her for it. But if she carelessly leaves the car window open overnight, with the result that her husband has to drive to work on a wet seat the following morning, then he might justifiably blame her for her oversight.

As soon as this premise is stated out loud, however, its flawed logic becomes clear: God is not just another human actor. He does not thoughtlessly leave the car window open, nor does He engage in the acts of pettiness, selfishness, and laziness which most couples struggle with to some degree or another. He is God, and therefore He is perfectly good, and that makes all the difference.

While the question “If I must thank God for good things, why shouldn’t I blame Him for bad things?” might sound reasonable, in reality it betrays the fact that we still view God like an imperfect boss whose record is in question, and who has to earn our respect. But that’s not who God is. Rather than being some flawed human executive, God is our perfect heavenly Father (see Matt 5:48). As such, we must learn to take His irrevocable goodness as our starting point, and then make the decision to trust that He is working all things for the good for those who love Him (see Rom 8:28).

When we do this, we begin to see that even in our darkest moments life remains extraordinarily beautiful, and creation remains overwhelmingly good. By surrendering ourselves to divine providence, we learn to recognize that all of this goodness comes from the God who loves us, who desires our perfect happiness, and who deserves our gratitude. Bl. Solanus Casey called gratitude “the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.” We owe gratitude to God because He is the source of “every good endowment and every perfect gift” (Jas 1:17), and because our existence remains fundamentally good even when our life seems filled with sorrows.

In this context, it might also be helpful to distinguish between God’s antecedent and consequent will. In her book The Image of God: The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Mourning, the Catholic philosopher Eleonore Stump explains that

God’s antecedent will is what God would have willed if everything in the world had been up to God alone. God’s consequent will is what God actually does will, given what God’s creatures will. For Aquinas, the will with which God assents to suffering is only his consequent will, not his antecedent will. (pp. 4-5)

When bad things come our way, these are often a result of human sinfulness and of the myriad ways in which humanity’s sin has caused fragmentation and suffering in the entire created order. We need to understand that these bad things are opposed to God’s antecedent will. In His consequent will, however, God does allow these things, but only ever for the sake of bringing out about some greater good: “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20).

One biblical figure who learnt this lesson through many hardships was Job. Amidst his terrible adversities, Job realized that even when God deprives us of some good thing, we should still bless Him, because God is allowing this trial for some deeper purpose: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21; cf. 2:10).

A similar sentiment appears on the lips of the psalmist when he proclaims, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (34:1). Interestingly, Psalm 34 doesn’t see any contradiction between, on the one hand, praising God at all times, and on the other hand, repeatedly crying out to Him in distress:

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. (34:6)

 

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. (34:15)

 

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. (34:17)

Through the cry of the righteous man, we catch a glimpse of what it might look like to “blame” God in a holy way. Holy blaming means rejecting any impulse to deny or doubt the unchanging goodness of God. Holy blaming also means following the Scriptural injunctions to thank God in all circumstances, and to bless Him at all times. At the same time, holy blaming finds a space for that raw, admirable honesty which characterizes so many of the psalms.

The truth is that, from a biblical perspective, it is good to cry out to God when bad things happen to us, and it is even right and just to tell Him in these moments that we don’t feel His goodness right now, or that we feel angry towards Him, or that His methods make no sense to us. God always welcomes our honesty, and He will use that vulnerability to conform our hearts more closely to His.

In closing, we might recall the wise words C.S. Lewis wrote to Don Giovanni Calabria, an Italian priest who was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1999:

We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is ‘good,’ because it is good; if ‘bad,’ because it works in us patience, humility and contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country. (Aug 10, 1948)

Further Reading

Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are (Thomas Nelson, 2010)

About Clement Harrold

Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.