My daughter, Abigail, always says Thanksgiving is here favorite holiday. The others—especially Christmas, she says—have so much buildup and hype and commercialism. But then they fail to deliver all they’ve overpromised. But Thanksgiving is simple: food, family, and giving thanks. Abigail has always been wise beyond her years.
As we lead
up to Thanksgiving, I want to spend a few weeks considering what it means to
give thanks. How can we live a life of
gratitude, so that thanks is part of our daily life, not just one day a year?
Gratitude
begins when we take time to remember the goodness of God and bless Him for all
His benefits. Forgetfulness leads to grumbling; remembrance leads to praise.
Psalm 103:1-5
1 Let
all that I am praise the Lord;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
2 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
3 He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
4 He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
5 He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Psalm 103 is attributed to David. Now David was king of Israel, but it was a long road to get there. Remember, David started out as the youngest of a set of brothers. And when the prophet Samuel came to inspect Jesse's sons to see which one of them would be the next king of Israel, David wasn't even invited to the party. He was left out in the field to watch the sheep. Even his own family didn't respect him.
We must
tune our souls to God through gratitude.
Do you remember the old radio with the analogue dial tuners? You would tune it to a station, but you couldn't just go by the number on the dial. That would get you close, but you had to listen until the static faded and the signal became clear.
Gratitude
is how we tune in our soul to God.
Remind your soul to give thanks to God.
We all suffer from spiritual amnesia. Forgetfulness is one of humanity’s spiritual diseases. The Israelites constantly forgot God’s deliverance. Even after he miraculously parted the Red Sea so they could escape the Egyptian army on dry ground, and God fed them with mana from heaven and quenched their thirst in the desert with water from a rock, the Israelites stilled complained. They forgot so quickly.
We forget too. So we have to make ourselves remember what God has done. Make a habit of remembering and giving thanks. Some practical things you can do to help:
- Keep a gratitude journal - write down things for which you are thankful throughout your day. Then go back and read it from time to time--especially when you are feeling down or overwhelmed by your problems.
- Share testimonies - tell people about the good things God has done for you.
- Tell your children or grandchildren what God has done for you. If you don't have children, share it with other young people in your life. It will encourage them and you.
- Share daily gratitude post on social media. A lot of people have been doing this during the month of November, leading up to Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful, useful, uplifting habit.
Throughout Psalm 103, David lists so many of the things God has done. We read the beginning of His list in verses 3-5 and these are all things for which we can be thankful too.
Remember, you do not deserve God’s mercy. You do not deserve good things. You are a sinner. You turned away from God and rejected His rightful authority over your life. You didn't care that He made you for a purpose. You chose to chase after your own desires. Some may have even done specific things they know they shouldn't do. But God, through Christ, has mercy and forgives all our sins. Be thankful.
All healing—whether physical, emotional, of spiritual—comes from God. We often pray for physical healing. And often it comes. Do not forget or take for granted every healing that comes from God--even the small moments of healing.
Sometimes healing does not come in the way we expect. But we can still be thankful. Because, if we are in Christ, God is still working to heal us--even if it doesn't come until the next life. Keep in mind that all physical healing in this life is only temporary. Even if you are healed from some terrible disease (like cancer) today, your body will still eventually wear out and die. So our ultimate hope is in the ultimate healing that comes when we rise from death. Then our bodies will be made completely whole. And so, we can be thankful...
Ultimate healing comes when we die and are resurrected with Christ. Through Christ, we have eternal life with God forever. And there will be no more sin or sickness or suffering or death (Revelation 21). So no matter what happens to us or those we love, we can be thankful because Jesus conquered death. We are victorious when we trust in Christ. Even death can be cause for thanksgiving for Christians who trust in Jesus Christ.
Though we were sinners, rebels, betrayers, failures, God puts a crown on our heads and calls us His royal sons and daughters. He loves us like He loves His own Son, Jesus. He rewards us as though we had followed Him faithfully. What incredible tender mercies! "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8) Praise be to God!
Each of us have so many good things in our lives to be thankful for. We often forget, because we focus on our struggles instead of our blessings. We may say, “Why do so many ‘bad things’ happening to me?” We ought, instead, to ask, “Why does God allow anything good to happen to me at all? Sinful wretch that I am!”
But God
fills our lives with so many good things! Let us train ourselves to be thankful. For in doing so, we tune our hearts to the Lord’s.
Psalm 103:1-2
1 Let all that we are praise
the Lord; with our whole hearts, we will praise His holy name.
2 Let all that we are praise the Lord; may we
never forget the good things He does for us.
As we head toward Thanksgiving, it’s easy to think of gratitude as a moment—just a day on the calendar with turkey and family and a quick prayer before the meal. But Psalm 103 reminds us that gratitude is not a moment; it’s a lifestyle.
When David
said, “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” he wasn’t waiting for everything in life to
be perfect. He was training his heart to remember that, no matter what
happens, God is still good.
Gratitude
isn’t automatic—it’s a spiritual discipline. It takes practice.
But when we practice gratitude, amazing things happens:
- The
things that once weighed us become lighter
- The
noise of worry fades
- And
the voice of God becomes clear again.
That’s why Thanksgiving shouldn’t just be a holiday—it should be a holy habit. A life of gratitude is a life that stays tuned to God.
So
this week—and in the weeks ahead—let’s do more than count our blessings. Let’s build our lives around them. I
challenge your to think how you could practice gratitude. Perhaps you could:
- Begin
every day with a simple prayer: “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”
- When
you feel overwhelmed, stop and remember one good thing God has
done.
- Maybe
you want to keep a list or journal of all the things you are thankful for
each day.
- Before
you fall asleep, whisper a thank-you for His mercy that met you again
today.
If we train our hearts to remember—then every day can become a day of thanksgiving.
Closing
Prayer
Lord, You
have filled our lives with good things—
forgiveness, healing, redemption, love, and mercy.
Teach us to remember.
Teach us to bless Your name not only when life feels full,
but when it feels empty.
Let gratitude shape our words, our homes, and our worship,
so that this Thanksgiving and every day after,
we might live as people whose souls continually say:
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Amen.
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