Giving Thanks Always
The Bible calls us to a thankful-always posture. We cannot excuse thankless hearts just because 2020 threw gut punch after gut punch—COVID-19, lost jobs, increasing racial tensions in our country. We also cannot shortcut true thanksgiving by pretending suffering hasn’t come.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, we read,
“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
God does not simply encourage us to try and be thankful in all circumstances. He commands us to. How, then, can we be thankful at the end of one of the most challenging years many of us have faced?
The Bible does not offer a quick solution. But it does offer a real solution. And this solution begins, I think, not with immediate thanks but with genuine mourning.
The Book of Psalms shows this pattern more clearly than any book. Psalm after psalm you see people struggling, and they often start their songs not with thanksgiving, but with honest words of grief. For example, hear one of the first lines in Psalm 42:
”My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’” (Psalm 42:3 ESV)
I don’t think this psalm broke the command to be thankful in all circumstances here. I think it provides one of many examples of how to get to thanksgiving. Getting to thanksgiving can begin with grief. Admitting hardships does not mean you are a thankless person, just as studying doesn’t mean you are a dumb person. You study to gain knowledge. You can admit hardship with the goal of getting to thanksgiving. In other words, we error, not when we start with mourning or grief, but only if we stop there.
Now, once we start our song with a verse on grief, we must press on to sing the whole song. Once you have expressed your grief, you might find ways to be thankful even amid your current hardships. You might grieve the loss of your job, but find thankfulness that your bank account is not empty. You might be sick, but you realize you feel better than yesterday. But even if you can’t find glimmers of hope that lead to thankfulness right in front of you, you can always sing loud and thankfully the grand finale promised by God—our worldly circumstances are not the end of the song; through faith in Jesus Christ, God promises us eternal life in an affliction-free, beautiful home with him.
Our current situations do not define us. They affect us, they shake us, but they do not uproot us. First Peter shows this unchanging truth:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,” (1 Peter 1:3–6 ESV)
Notice that Peter does not shy away from mentioning how we will be grieved by various trials. But what these trials do not change is the sure hope that Christ has secured for us.
So how do Christians have thankfulness, hope, even joy, amid hard days (even hard years)? We do so by first grieving the brokenness, and then, by faith, moving from grief to hope. Not current hope, but future, sure, eternal hope.
As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we have the chance to be those who rightly mourn the brokenness trying to define 2020. But then we also get to be those who make the turn from grieving to thankfulness and so shine the hope of Christ to our family, friends, and neighbors.