When common sense isn't the answer

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Three tiny verses - and three quite explosive commands. Have you ever seriously chewed them over?

I call these commands "explosive" because they are likely to make some people seriously, indeed explosively, angry. Be joyful always? But what have I got to rejoice about in the hardship and misery of my life! Pray continually? - what, even when my heart is stone cold and I just haven't got the stomach for prayer! Give thanks in all circumstances? - even when I’ve just had bad news from the doctor, or family problems are crushing me! What planet are you living on, Paul? Get real!

I know the feeling, and you probably do as well. The jargon word to describe what Paul is asking for here (a little more polite than "stupid", "ridiculous" or "infuriating") is "counter-intuitive".  Which means, basically, flying in the face of common-sense. In fairness to Paul, it’s only right to say that he seems to have practiced what he preached - it’s hard to imagine a more counter-intuitive action than singing hymns to God while lying in a smelly, probably rat-infested dungeon (Acts 16).

Yes, it seems that the Bible means what it says. However much of a struggle it may be, we as God's people are called to obey these scatter-gun commands.

If it's any comfort, the Bible itself makes it pretty clear that it isn't always easy. We read that "Jesus wept". Well, is that compatible with "rejoicing"? Romans 8:26 suggests that there are times when the best we can summon up in prayer is "groans". Is that compatible with "praying continually"? As always, we need to take the whole of scripture into account in understanding what it says.

But that doesn't mean we should dilute its plain meaning. The fact is that Christians, in principle, should be joyful... prayerful...  thankful. How does that fit you, me?

I must leave it to you to work out how to put this into daily practice in your own life - and in this area I am, as always, interested to hear what you say, as I still have so much to learn myself. But I want to highlight a couple of things it suggests about the nature of the Christian faith.

First, Christianity is unapologetically counter-intuitive (sorry about that mouthful!). It does indeed fly in the face of common sense. A baby born to a virgin... a man walking on water... the dead raised to life... God himself coming to earth in human form... you can't get much more counter-intuitive than all that, can you?

Set against such claims of the sheerly miraculous, these verses in 1 Thessalonians seem pretty low-key stuff. Get rid of the miraculous - however counter-intuitive it may seem - and Christianity fizzles out into well-meaning do-goodism.

Second, it follows that Christianity calls us, in effect, to retrain our minds, to start thinking in all sorts of new ways.

A non-Christian who receives bad news can be forgiven for not turning to prayer or thanksgiving, and certainly not to rejoicing. But the Christian in that position has resources to fall back on that the non-Christian knows nothing of. He or she can stop and give him or herself a talking to. They can call to mind not only Bible verses like these, but also times in their own experience when the "counter-intuitive" response has proved to be not only possible, but actually transforming and joy-giving.

Putting that a little more simply, we are called to be people of faith - optimistic people, people who buck the common-sense trend. "Yes," we can say to ourselves, "it does seem crazy... but it's true nonetheless, and I intend to prove it so!"

However we apply Paul's words in detail, they boil down to the fact that our attitude to life is positive, not negative, hopeful, not despairing. If God really is God, then all sorts of seemingly impossible things can happen.

Another way to put it would be this: we are called to take control of our moods, not to allow our moods to take control of us. Yes?

Please don’t misunderstand me: very often common sense is a good guide to how we should think and act. But - and this is the point - not always. May I invite you to read these three commands again, and pray for grace, courage and wisdom to put them into practice?

Lord, please help me to exercise faith at all times, especially when common-sense might lead me to be negative and even despairing. Amen.

Have there been situations in your life when you took a deep breath and did the counter-intuitive thing – only in the long run to be proved right?