Many people lose their way in life because they are not grateful to God. Historically, Paul associated the most serious spiritual and moral losses with an unthankful spirit. He wrote the Christians at Rome that ungodly men were without excuse; "for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.: (Romans 1:21). The context reveals that failure in thanking contributes to failure in thinking. Awareness of God becomes blurred. Wisdom turns to folly. Worship is transferred from the Creator to the creature. Values are so distorted that the possibility of sanctity and beauty in sex and the hope of social justice and domestic happiness may be wholly canceled.

Fundamentally, we begin to fulfill God's purpose for us by offering up our praise:

Shout for joy to the Lords, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

While many of the Psalms celebrate God as Redeemer, this one (Psalm 100) sings of him almost wholly as Creator. Man was made to rejoice in His Maker. While logically we may think of God in separate ways as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, experientially we know him in all these ways together. William Law, one of the outstanding men of prayer in the eighteenth century, was writing as creature and Christian when he urged: "If anyone would tell you the shortest way to all happiness and perfection, he must tell you to make a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you."

In brief compass in a pastoral letter Paul indicates that man's chief end includes sharing gratefully in the gifts of the Creator. "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer" (1 Tim. 4: 1 - 5). Cary Weisigner has written the following: "a coercive asceticism may wear the garb of spirituality, but it is really an apostasy from the purpose of God for his creatures. But we must note that selfish enjoyment does not glorify God. Conscious recognition of the Giver's goodness consecrates both gifts and enjoyment. In other words, man was put on earth to give thanks to God."

The crisp freshness of each new day, the smell of the good earth newly turned for sowing seed, a golden carpet of leaves in the wood, bulging bins of fruit and grain, and tables loaded for a feast excite our wonder and gratitude.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

Praise Him, all creatures here below.

If thanksgiving is a clue to life's meaning, it must be relevant to pain, frustration and loss. Unless it can stand up to life's cruel blows and denials, it is a frothy and transitory as the foam on an ocean wave.

Let us consult William Law again. "For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. The true saint is not he who prays most, or fasts most...., who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance...or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it."

The apostle Paul in chains wrote his epistle of joy, the letter to the Philippians. He saw calamity as serving to advance the Gospel. This proved the possibility of remaining thankful and unembittered under trial. He practiced what he had written earlier to the Thessalonians: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Commenting on this, John Wesley says,: "This is Christian perfection. Further than this we cannot go; and we need not stop short of it. Our Lord has purchased joy, as well as righteousness, for us. Thanksgiving is inseparable from true prayer; it is almost essentially connected with it. He that always prays is ever giving praise, whether in ease or pain, both for prosperity and for the greatest adversity. He blesses God for all things, looks on them as coming from Him, and receives them only for His sake; not choosing nor refusing, liking nor disliking, anything, but only as it is agreeable or disagreeable to His perfect will."

There is a difference, of course, between giving thanks FOR something and giving thanks IN something. It may be impossible to be grateful FOR some towering tragedy; it is not impossible to be grateful IN it. This is the crucial test of the thankful approach to life and the deathblow to cynicism. We need to practice a grateful faith moment by moment. This is Paul's point in Philippians 4: 6 and 7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to god. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." May God give us thankful hearts, regardless of our circumstances.

Sincerely in Christ,


Floyd McPhee