God’s Generosity
This week, we're going to look at Psalm 136, a wonderful psalm that teaches us a lot about God. The first three verses, repeat a phrase:
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:1-3 NIV)
Being Thankful
Now the whole Psalm goes on, saying “His love endures forever” at the end of every verse. But for now I want to pay attention to that phrase “give thanks to the Lord”. The Psalmist says we should give thanks because He's good. Because He's the God of gods. Because He's the Lord of Lords.
Truly Grateful
A story is told of a teacher who was given a Bible by his students at the end of the year. But he was not a religious man, and so he said very clearly to them, “Well, thank you for this, but it's not really going to do much for me.” His thanks was expressed, but it meant nothing. It was just a formality that he went through. And I think for many of us, our prayers of thanks can become like this to God. We say thank you because we know that we should say thank you, but we're not really even giving him praise, and we’re not even grateful.
Many of us say grace before most meals. How easily it becomes just a little ritual, where you rattle off the words and then don't even think about what it means! I pray that God isn't hearing our words of things and saying, “You're just saying the words, but your heart isn't grateful.” The Psalmist says give thanks, give thanks, give thanks -three times to start. May it be a reminder to us today that God deserves our heartfelt thanks.
A Grateful Heart
He is good. He's provided for us. He's blessed us in so many ways. There's an old song that says “give thanks with a grateful heart”. With a grateful heart. Not just with your lips, but with a grateful heart. I pray that you will look around at your life today and with a grateful heart. Give thanks to God. Not just once or twice or three times like this Psalm says, but over and over all throughout the day.
And you know what? Your heart will be ringing if it's grateful, no matter what comes your way.
