Of course, every day ought to be Thanksgiving Day for believers, given not only the New Testament’s variety of admonitions to give thanks always and for all things, but also the Old Testament’s repeated lyric: “Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good.” But this American holiday still serves as a nice reminder of the importance of gratitude.
There is an approach to ethics, intuitionism, based on the idea that there are some things built into people which they just “know” are right—for example: don’t hurt other people for no good reason; help other people if you reasonably can; be fair. In W.D. Ross’s list of seven intuitive obligations, only keeping promises precedes showing gratitude. Why would gratitude be so fundamental to our understanding of the world?
When the apostles preached the gospel to a Jewish audience, they grounded their argument for faith in Jesus in the Old Testament covenant with Israel. But when faced with a purely pagan audience, Paul grounded the case for repentance in God’s gracious provision for man in creation. In Lystra: “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” And in Athens: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth… gives to all mankind life and breath and everything… is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’”
It seems to me that gratitude is our way of acknowledging that He is the Creator, and we are not; that He is Sovereign, and we are not; that He deserves everything good, and we do not. If we believe we do not deserve the good we receive, and notice we received the good we did not deserve—thanks should be natural, intuitive. Even the struggles we face—the disappointments, the fears—should rise in our minds only against the persistent background of God’s goodness.
I pray you are reminded of innumerable goods God has given you this week, and that you respond as He created us to respond, with thanks.
“Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good.”