With A Thankful Heart

 As the week of Thanksgiving is upon us yet again, I'm contemplating what it means to live with a thankful heart. On the surface, being grateful and appreciative seems easy, especially when it's for things that feel reasonable and necessary. But the truth is, thankfulness isn't so easy. Particularly when it involves circumstances that seem unwanted or painful, living with a thankful heart is the furtherest thing from our minds. 

Life is hard. Marriages fail and bodies fail to conceive and families turn on one another and nations rise and fall and death and loss happen everywhere. Sinful people doing life on a sin-ravaged planet are bound to cause their own share of chaos and pain and confusion. Relationships suffer. People suffer in their minds, bodies, and spirits. Welcome to the less-than-perfect reality of a broken world that has yet to be redeemed. So how do we find reason to bless God in the face of all this? When disease and accidents tear ones we love away from us or egos get in the way of understanding or suffering of any kind threatens to rip our hearts right in two, why should we still try to live with a thankful heart? 

Slowly, in my own journey, I've started to notice something. I've often felt that there is always a hidden blessing, a disguised goodness, to be found even in the face of incredibly broken things and people. I still feel that way. But looking for these things and offering our hearts in thanks can sometimes feel nearly impossible. In such moments, the only thing we have is to be thankful for God Himself. Even this may be difficult, but here's what I mean: 

When we focus on thanking God strictly for people or things, all of which can be taken away at any point, we set our hearts and minds on temporal blessings that are subject to change. We let our thankfulness be determined by circumstances and individuals who may or may remain constant in our lives and, as such, we set ourselves up for great disappointment. Yet, when we choose to focus on the existence of God, the unchangeableness of God, the faithfulness of God, the love of God, the grace of God, we are allowing ourselves to be thankful for things that are continuous. And when so much is rocking your world, coming back to what is firm and certain is essential to maintaining faith in the face of understandable doubt and fear. 

As you gather around the Thanksgiving table this year, I don't know what circumstances you may be facing. 2023 may have been a year of great joy for you or one of intense sorrow. But whichever case it is, you still hold in your grasp a few things that have held you together even if your life felt like it was falling apart: God has never left you, He is still good, and you are always loved. God's character has kept shining through, though maybe in obscured ways. His care for you has still come through, even if it felt like what He was taking you through was anything but kind. Hope has still led the way even on the darkest days and the arms of God have never stopped being open for you to run into. His ears have been open to your cries, and His eyes have seen your tears. 

When it seems as though there have been more crosses and losses than blessings and you have struggled under the challenges the year may have brought you, remember that God Himself has remained true. Steadfast. Unchangeable. When others left or things took a turn for the worst, God was still there. He is still here now. And, when it has been hard to trace His hand in the things that happened, we can still trace His heart and know that our good and His glory remain His ultimate motives. We can live with a thankful heart because we can be grateful for God Himself even if we have lost everything else.