Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! Psalm 118: 1a, NKJV.
Dear God, we are grateful to You for being good to us; so much better than we are to ourselves. For this we offer You our thanks in the name of Your Son and our Savior – Jesus Christ! Amen.
There is a good feeling in the air. It is the feeling of thankfulness! I received several well appreciated thanksgiving greetings, and was blessed by them. It made me stop and think about some of the reasons we give God thanks. We usually thank Him for life, for health and strength, for family and friends; for shelter and food, for answered prayers, and the list could get really long.
But what happens when our prayers are “not answered”? At least not the way we expected them to be answered? What happens when we pray for God to miraculously heal someone who is terminally ill, and the person dies? What happens when we prayed for a promotion and someone else gets the job? What happens when we expected a certain outcome from a situation and are disappointed? What happens when we ask God to rid us of the “thorn in the flesh” and He tells us instead, “My grace is sufficient” (2 Corinthians 12: 9)?
Do we still give God thanks, just because – He is good?
I believe that there is a great blessing to be received in doing this. When we give God thanks because He is good, and not merely because we received what we asked for, it changes the way we look at life. The disappointments become “blessings in disguise.” Therefore, we live in a constant atmosphere of thanksgiving. My prayer was not ignored; instead, God was being good to me.
I have often said to God, “I do not understand what You are doing; and if it was left to me, I would do it differently. But I am going to trust You, because I know that You are a good God.” Praying with this mindset has made a positive difference in my life. I do not feel overlooked, or rejected, or unloved. I feel that I am being cared for by a good God who knows things that I do not know; Who sees things that I cannot see; Who is working through all of my circumstances to bring out the best in me. Therefore I thank Him, for being good.
Do you believe that everyone, except you, have something to be grateful for? Think again. If you serve the Great God of the universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, and the soon-to-return King of kings and Lord of lords, you too have the same reason as everyone else , to give Him thanks: Because He is good!