Gratitude

 November 24, 2022

Social Media is filled today with words of thanksgiving. It IS Thanksgiving, after all! Today everyone gives thanks; tomorrow will be back to normal. Why is it we save all our gratitude for this one day and forget about it the next? What kind of gratitude is that? 

I will never forget the day it finally dawned on me that gratitude is not optional equipment for the Christian. I had lived most of my life under a cloud of melancholy; I would have days of joy and contentment, but instead of living with emotional and spiritual technicolor, most of the time  it was blacks and white against a grey background, and that was even knowing Jesus. I often wished I could feel the joy others seemed to feel, but even worship rarely lifted me from the flatlined existence I had.

One day in December 2012, God spoke to me: “Where is your joy?” I had to confess I didn’t know, and then I read 1 Thessalonians 5:18 where St. Paul said “Give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It suddenly dawned on me that this wasn’t merely a suggestion; it was a commandment, one which I had been disobeying for most of my life. I began giving thanks every day, and a little over a year later, I woke one morning to discover that the cloud of melancholy was gone. And as long as I keep giving thanks, it stays gone.

I’ve since learned that Paul’s command wasn’t the only time giving thanks was commanded. In Psalm 107 for example, we are told no less than five times to give thanks, first as a command, then as a prayer repeated four times in verses 8, 15, 21, and 31.

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. 

“Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!”

No less than 18 times in the Bible we are commanded to give thanks, besides all the times the writers voluntarily offered their gratitude. But as we as a country continue to drift from our Biblical roots, gratitude is left in the dust behind us along with our Bibles. The result is predictable: though we are blessed beyond measure, we are among the unhappiest people on the planet. Gratitude, it turns out, isn’t a product of our blessings; it is a matter of the heart, a determination of the soul. 

We have much for which to be thankful, not only on this day, but on all days. Even in the darkest and most difficult of times, gratitude is warranted, and can spell the difference between life and death. We choose gratitude, and we choose bitterness. Thank you, God, for opening my eyes to the power of gratitude, and in so doing, you gave me a new lease on life. All this because in Jesus Christ there is always a reason to give thanks.