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Giving Thanks
“I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth;
in the midst of the multitude will I praise him.”
Psalm 109:29
This verse from Psalm 109 is appointed for Morning Prayer today in The Book of Common Prayer, and it’s a fitting resolution as our minds turn to Thanksgiving next week.
As you make your way to HEB along with everyone else, as you make your Christmas plans and work on your shopping list, it can be hard to make time to reflect on what you have, what you’ve been given. After all, there is so much still to do, so much to get!
However, Thanksgiving is set aside as a day for gratitude, a time to give thanks for all the blessings of life. (Okay, and also for watching football.) And that is a very good thing. We need to set aside time simply to be grateful to God for what we have, to take a break from all of our striving to get more and do more and be more, to be still and to give thanks.
I know that I am sometimes so focused on doing the next thing or taking the next step that I lose sight of what I already have. That is not surprising for me, with a full plate at work and three small children. There is always something more to do! There is always another bill to worry about, another big week coming up at work, another this or another that. It can be easy to think, “When I’ve finished this project, then I’ll take a break.” “When I’ve achieved this goal, then I’ll be satisfied.” But does that day ever come? Don’t the goalposts seem to keep moving?
The story goes that John D. Rockefeller, who at the time was the world’s richest man, was asked, “Mr. Rockefeller, how much money is enough?” He replied, “Just one more dollar.” There is always just one more dollar, one more goal, isn’t there?
The basic posture of the Christian life, to the contrary, is that we have already been given everything we need in Christ. The most important battle has already been won, on the Cross. The most important verdict has already been pronounced on our lives, which is that we are given a full pardon for our sins and granted the full inheritance that belongs to God’s beloved Son. It is all grace, a pure gift, all the way down. All we need to do is be humble enough to open up our hands to receive it.
If we but had eyes to see, we would realize that what we have been given by God — all the blessings of this life, the means of grace and the hope of glory — far, far outweighs anything we could ever achieve or earn. This season, may our hearts be filled up not with the next thing on our list to do, but with gratitude for all we have been given.
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