“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever” - Psalm 107:1 (NIV).
Having a thankful heart might not come easy, especially in these trying times of a pandemic where news of loss of life tends to be overwhelming. How can you be thankful when you lose a loved one you feel has still a lot of life in him, only to be snapped away suddenly? It is not just the loss of life, there are situations in life where one is done unfairly, pushed out of a job or plainly cheated, the looters fleeing away triumphantly. How do you start giving thanks for being robbed of what was yours!
The reason why we are thankful is that it is not only therapeutic, for bitterness can clog us down, but also because life cannot be looked at from only one angle. For every life that is taken away from us we must be thankful for it, because it was a blessing we had it, though we could have asked for more years. One person who lost a child, quietly observed, “I didn’t have any right to have him, so I must give thanks to God for the few years He let me enjoy him!” Tough, but true!
There are also those situations, where in spite of being treated unfairly, the experience makes us better and stronger for days ahead. Like, Joseph who had been left for dead by his brothers and sold as a slave, enduring jail, yet did not let bitterness consume him, that when he met his once captors, he pointed to them there was something good out of a negative situation. “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:7), he told his brothers who were worried he was going to hurt them for the injustice they had done to him.
The Bible has many uplifting instances of those who met devastating experience, but hurtful as it were, gave thanks to God. Job gives thanks after losing all his family and possessions, on no account of his fault, by saying, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (Job 1:21). We know how Job was blessed later fir his positive attitude.
Today, whatever might be the situation you are going through, give thanks to God. Difficult as it might seem the Psalmist is right: “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is King of all the earth; sing profound praises to Him.….” (Psalm 47: 6-7)
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today in spite off all around, the loss of lives through a pandemic, and injustice met here and there, I rise to give you thanks, for you are good and your love endures, this I pray in Jesus’s name!
