Alistair shares his thought for the week; gratitude to God.
Happy Bank Holiday Monday everyone! It’s our last bank holiday until Christmas, but I remain grateful and everyone, like me who doesn’t have to work today, is incredibly thankful to God for another opportunity to rest, be with family and catch up on life.
In the spirit of gratitude to God, it just got me thinking how important is our expressed gratitude to God. So biblical scholars picked up that the term gratitude is mentioned 157 times in the Bible and biblical gratitude was expressed in extremely diverse ways. Looking at King David’s heartfelt rededication of his whole life to God on the assurance that his failures and his sins would be completely forgiven and he could try again with God in Psalm 51.
Then we go all the way to Job who had a bewildering reflex to express gratitude to God despite losing his children and his complete estate. And I say bewildering because the devil was so sure that his attack would ruin Job’s standing with God that it genuinely confused him when Job led with thanksgiving that God had given him everything and he was going to return to God eventually. So that was Job’s mindset and that’s how he led with with thanksgiving even in the most dire of circumstances.
So what’s interesting about these examples is that these heroes of our faith anchored their whole journey with God on their gratitude to him and called to mind God’s pure and perfect nature and they were sure of what God had done, what God had given them, what God had delivered them from and they lived their lives expressing that as their gift back to God. You see gratitude is sometimes a natural progression of our walk. It can be an easy thing to do, waking up in the morning and thanking God for waking up. Or if you’ve had a great day, it’s very, very easy to thank God for that. But other times, it can be the hardest thing to do. Maybe you’ve had an unanswered prayer, maybe you’ve experienced serious loss in your life, or maybe you’re in a pain that just does not pass. It may seem nonsensical to offer gratitude to God at that moment but do not lose heart.
As long as God lives, so does our hope of seeing tomorrow. And as long as Jehovah is our God, our story is not over. And when our time eventually comes, it’s to him that we return, the master of the universe, the maker of all things, the author of our faith. As the Psalmist says,
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
Psalm 43:5
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Gratitude is an extension of our faithfulness to God, and in our lives where God has given us absolutely everything, it offers us a chance to give something back to him. So to summarize, this week anchor your journey with God on your gratitude to him and if we remember who God is in every situation, gratitude will always be the natural choice in any situation.
Have a blessed week family, God bless you all.
Every week one of our members shares a short thought aiming to inspire you for the week. You can watch previous Thought For The Week videos by clicking here.