Do you enjoy dealing with grateful people? What do you experience when people begin recounting all your good deeds, the important lessons you have taught, and the benefit you bring to others—or when they are simply grateful that you exist?
Giving thanks is one of the most beautiful adornments a person can have. The deeper the spirit of gratitude and the more opportunities a person sees to say thank you, the more beautiful and dependable that person appears. I have noticed that people like this truly stand out in our society.
I live in a region where a spirit of gratitude is encouraged. In every store or public place, all the employees and workers greet and thank you, sometimes even against their will. This is one of the marketing techniques that works very well.
But if I can choose where to shop, I prefer a grateful salesperson. Still, there is a difference between an employer’s requirement and the prompting of the heart.
To understand why I need gratitude, it is worth considering the following: How would we feel if our Creator stopped giving us what He freely sends us every day? If God withdrew His protection and His blessings, we would immediately see the difference between what life was like before and what it became afterward.
Unfortunately, we are selfish by nature, and selfishness demands attention for itself and regards the whole world as its debtor, simply obligated to labor for my benefit. In this way of thinking, God should also bring me good things because I am the center of the universe. With ambitions like these, I go out among people and discover that no one needs me or finds me interesting.
In His mercy, God has placed me in a society where my selfish nature simply cannot survive if I think only about myself. Society teaches me sound principles for life, and I learn them.
Yet the enemy of souls introduces his own distortions into the social environment, and the strong begin using the weak to satisfy their ambitions.
Once God allowed people to walk in their own ways, and everything reached the point where humanity became mad in its selfishness and sin, and the Creator had to destroy the whole world with the waters of the Flood. After leaving the ark, Noah and his family offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. The Most High blessed Noah and his descendants, giving us the rainbow as a reminder that this world would never again be destroyed by water.
Afterward, God made provision for humanity to receive greater light through Moses and the prophets concerning the holiness of God’s character and the possibility for a sinner to become righteous by faith in the coming Savior, to Whom all the feasts and sacrifices pointed, including the sacrifices of thanksgiving.
The whole teaching of the Bible is permeated with the unfolding revelation of God’s selflessness. Holy Scripture seeks to impress upon our minds the extent of our dependence on the Creator in everything. The Bible tells us how God loves us—sinful and ungrateful as we are—and how He desires that we should not perish but have Eternal life. What is expected of me is that I accept God’s plan, believe in Christ as my Savior, and simply give thanks for what the Lord does for me. By expressing my gratitude, I testify before the entire unseen world that I place my hope in the One Who gave His life so that I might live forever.
I began thinking about how fully I understand all that I owe to God. Looking more deeply within myself, I saw that although I have a grateful spirit, it is very superficial. At times my tongue praises God and people while my heart does not understand why I am doing it. My mind says, ‘That is what you are supposed to do.’ I am deeply ashamed to admit this. I simply see a kind of barrier that prevents my mind from diving deeper and seeing more. It is difficult for me to envision God, Whom I cannot see. It is difficult for me to comprehend what Eternity, which will never end, will be like, or how long ‘forever and ever’ will last. Yet by faith I grasp what lies beyond my imagination, and my lips automatically give thanks for what is unseen. I know that as long as I live in this world, this veil will separate me from my unseen Savior. Only my weak faith will bind us firmly together and give me strength and confidence that all of this truly exists, that my labor is not in vain, that I will receive what was promised, and that I will see what is now unseen.
If you ask me why I believe and deny myself worldly benefits and pleasures, I will honestly say that I find a special delight in living with God and obeying Him. The peace I did not have before now fills my heart with a special joy and gratitude to the Creator for the changes He has brought about in me. God’s love fills my mind so completely that without it I simply see no meaning in this life. Happiness follows close behind me; I immerse myself in it and cannot explain why I am the way I am. None of this is accidental. It is the Lord’s reward for my interest in holy things and my desire to live in them. How can I fail to thank the One Who cares for us so tenderly? I know that similar blessings are available to other people as well, and therefore I want to share them and find the right words to communicate what is real, what works, and what helps.
My lips cannot remain silent, and even if they grow quiet, my life begins to speak about it. Gratitude flows by itself.
Once I wondered whether I should thank God for the bad things in my life. I decided that I should and began to practice it. Then I noticed that many troubles, severe trials, evil people, grief, and suffering brought far greater blessings in the formation of my character than things that were pleasant and comforting. Yet I am never drawn to what is bad, and evil people do not make me glad. Humanly speaking, I simply want to run away from all of it, but it is there.
The coming fire of trials does not make me glad, and my whole being resists such a turn of events. But I understand that I must pass through it, and I move forward without considering retreat. Amid this struggle, my unseen Friend Jesus supports me. He does not abandon me but promises to remain beside me in every trial. His love makes the difficulties that arise seem light. It gives me victory.
And when I feel like a victor, and love knows no defeat, the battle becomes so interesting. You can hardly wait to discover what the next victory will be. You enter into it and rejoice. And for everything, there is gratitude to God.
Death is no longer terrifying, and trials do not frighten me. Love casts out all fear and gives far more besides. I cannot even explain it. The greatest difficulty with love is that in my heart I understand and see its power and beauty, but I do not have enough words to describe it. Yet I can say with certainty that without it I am nothing and no one, and nothing will profit me at all.
When all of us stand before the White Throne and look with our own eyes—not with the eyes of faith—upon the Faces of our God, only then will we begin to understand what our salvation cost Him, what He sacrificed, what He risked, and what He left forever in order to save each one of us. I believe that at that moment our gratitude will know no bounds, and all Eternity will seem too short to express our full appreciation for the travail of Jesus’ soul.
For now, I am only learning this, but I know that even my smallest sincere expression of thanksgiving brings joy to God’s heart.
Bible verses for this chapter:
John 11:41–44; Leviticus 7:12–13; 22:29; Matthew 15:36–37; 26:27; Romans 1:8; 7:25; 14:6; 1 Corinthians 10:30; 15:57; 2 Corinthians 9:11–12, 15; Ephesians 4:29; 5:4, 20; Colossians 2:7; Revelation 11:17