What’s So Important About Thankfulness?

Family Blog, Thanksgiving 2024

Brian Van Doren

There are many things in life for which we could be unthankful. Cancer, bad grades, poor work reviews, broken relationships; the list goes on. If we are honest, I think that many people live in a perpetual state of ingratitude owing to the vast circumstances that regularly seem to be set against them. Charles Spurgeon said it this way: “We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.” And it is likely because of this attitude of ingratitude that many live in a melancholy, anxious, and defeated state of existence. 

But that is not God’s design for us. In Christ, His purpose for our lives is to experience His glory and live in a state of joy and fulfillment in spite of our malevolent circumstances. The key to this, though, is thankfulness. 

The power of thankfulness is that it reorients our hearts on God and recalibrates our perspectives regarding our circumstances. Look at how scripture instructs us to be thankful: 

1 Thessalonians 5:8 makes it clear that thankfulness is not dependent on circumstances. Instead, thankfulness gives us a God-centered perspective on our circumstances. It says: “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” It does not say, be thankful for all circumstances, but rather in all circumstances. So, what is it that we are to be thankful for? 

Colossians 3:15-17 helps answer that question. It gives us insight on how thankfulness should permeate everything we do as believers, constantly focusing our hearts on the goodness of God to us in Jesus. It says: 

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” 

This text’s three-fold exhortation to be thankful is emphasizing that we are always to be thankful for God and His work in our lives through Jesus Christ. It is God “from whom all blessings flow.” And it is to God that thankfulness can and ought to be constantly given. 

When we are thankful regardless of the circumstances, we are declaring that God is our greatest good. We are saying with the psalmist in Psalm 27:4 “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold  the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.” We are acknowledging that because of the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, we can and will behold the Lord and worship Him now and forever more. Christians are thankful because we have God. He is what we desire the most. And expressing our thankfulness is the way we exercise the love we have in our hearts for God. 

So if you are struggling with melancholy, anxiety, or grumbling, try focusing less on the things you can complain about and start focusing on the radically undeserved blessings you have in Jesus Christ. And say thank you.