Thankfulness In the Journey of Life

Good morning. I have a little bit of a longer introduction than normal. We will read from the scripture in a little bit. But it is a joy to be up here this week. I don't know what your guys' thoughts on the holiday season coming into Thanksgiving and all are, but for me, it's one of the joyfullest times of the year. I love it. I love the food, the fellowship. I love the cold. I love Christmas. So I'm sure you've all realized that this Thursday is Thanksgiving. And the idea of Thanksgiving and having a day to give thanks, dedicated to the idea of giving thanks, is one that's actually a biblical idea. It is something that was pretty common in the church, actually. It was not uncommon for the church to appoint special days of Thanksgiving to commemorate.

a particular blessing or deliverance from God. Even individual families would do this when there was the safe delivery of a child or some big event where they felt God's particular blessing and deliverance given to them. They would call their pastor and he would come and they would have a celebration and they would give thanks to God for the goodness that he had showed them. Thanksgiving is inherently a Christian idea. And so it is very appropriate that we would have a day that's dedicated to the giving of thanks. So that means that on that day we should actually be giving thanks and not just be distracted by all the work that goes into it or the good deals or supposedly the good deals that happen over the next couple days. But it's not something that should be limited to one day. Thanksgiving is actually a...

attitude and a work that should be done throughout all our days, throughout all our life, not just relegated to one time of the year. And so this morning, what we're going to do is we're going to look at the idea of giving thanks, but it's obviously a very large topic. There are an incredible number of verses in scripture that deal with giving thanks. Some of the verses commanded of us. And some of them are just simple examples of godly men, godly women who are experiencing God's blessing or going through hard times, and what they do is they give thanks to God. But it's not even just those explicit verses that we have in Scripture. It actually goes beyond that because thankfulness isn't a standalone concept. In Scripture, oftentimes, giving thanks...

Praise and worship are almost indistinguishable. You read the Psalms and it says, enter his courts with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise. And the ideas are so closely united that you could preach a sermon on thanksgiving from many passages that don't actually say the word, give thanks in them. Because it's so closely united to the idea of praising God, worshiping God. The ideas of gratitude, of contentment. We could even look at the negative side of it, how detrimental it is for us to not give thanks. You read through Romans chapter 1, and one of the serious charges that Paul brings against the ungodly is that they don't give thanks to God. So all of that to say...

I had a lot of scripture to work through and try and figure out, okay, we're going to talk about giving thanks, but how can we narrow this down to something that is more than just saying, give thanks, go and do that. Well, that's good, but let's try and flesh that out a little bit, put some more meat on those bones. And so our passage for day A is going to be Psalm 136. But I want to go through Psalm 136 in light of 1 Thessalonians 5.18, in which Paul says, In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ. In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ. You know, when we see in Scripture that thanksgiving and the command to giving thanks is so prevalent, it should probably clue us into the fact that It's hard for us to do that. Like, God has to constantly be reminding us to do it. If it was something that was supernatural, if it was something that was very natural, I should say, to us, it would be something that we wouldn't have to be constantly reminded to do. It would be like, good job, you're doing what you need to do. But it's commanded so often, we're given so many examples of it, is because it's not actually something that comes naturally to us.

Giving thanks is very hard. And it's hard whether we're going through something really difficult or whether we're just going through the normal routines of life. Paul's exhortation isn't easy to follow for most of us. For some of us, we might have a natural disposition that is more towards giving thanks. But for most of us, it's not something that we just do. We have to be taught. We have to do it. And so... The big picture point, if you're taking notes, you can write this down, is to be diligent to give thanks to God in the journey of life. What I mean by that is to give thanks to God in the journey of life is something that we all have to do in particular areas of our lives. So if you're old or if you're young, you are right now currently dealing with attendant things that come with those things, right, with being old or young. If you're young, often what you want is to be older. And you're discontent because you're not happy with the age that you are. A funny example of that may be one of my sons, when we were living in Florida, couldn't play soccer because he wasn't four.

He couldn't do Awana, or the Sunday school, that is, because he wasn't four. And so he was really unhappy because in his mind, life actually began at the age of four. And there were attendant tears and sorrows because he just couldn't wait to be four, right? But often that's all of us. We have different things. We're discontent because we can't drive yet. Or maybe... We're going through the awkwardness of puberty. And so we just want to be older. We want to get out of this stage and into the next stage. But our call is to be thankful in everything, in that. But then, you know, maybe on the other side of it, we're tired of getting older. You wake up with pains that you didn't have before, the changes that come with getting old. And so, you know, So we have to learn how to be thankful in that scenario also, right? Whether we're old or young, the younger kids want to exchange places with those who are older, and the older people are like, oh, I wish I had the energy and whatever of that kid. And so we all have to learn that in whatever area we find ourselves. But that's not all, right? There's also learning to give thanks with kids. Some of us need to give thanks in the joys and the hardships of disciplining our kids.

Some of us need to give thanks in the hardship of not having as many kids as we want or not having kids. Some of us need to give thanks in the hardship of being very fruitful and having lots of kids, which brings its own attendant issues, right? And so we always are like looking at the other person and like, man, it'd be so much easier to be happy and thankful if I was in their situation, right? And so we can all like. look at the other person's place and wish we were there. This is also true of relationships, though, right? We have to give thanks in where we're at with our relationships, whether we're married and we're having troubles in our marriage, whether we're single and we wish we were married, whether we're dating and we wish we were married, whether...

We're unhappy with our spouse, and we wish our spouse looked like this other person or acted like this other person, right? Like, we are to give thanks in every situation and throughout wherever we're at in life. We could go through work and school and look at, you know, there's all the attendant difficulties that come with being in those places in our lives. We could look at our living situations. Are you in an apartment? And you wish you had more space, like a house. Are you in a house? And now you're having to deal with all the things that come along with loaning houses, problems with furnaces and with vehicles and with windows and doors and floors and all these other things. And so it can be hard to be grateful. And the person in the apartment is saying, I wish I had a house. And the person in the house is like, I wish I didn't have these bills and these troubles.

Some of you are ungrateful because what you really want is to move out of your parents' house. And some of us are like, man, I wish I still had my parents paying my bills. So in all of these journeys, in all of the situation that you're at, we could multiply even more examples. We have to learn how can we give thanks in these situations where we feel tensions. In other words, not just in the really hard things of life. Not just in deaths and sicknesses, but also in just the normal stress of everyday living. How can we find thankfulness in that? Well, we're going to read Psalm 136. We're not going to actually work singly through each of the verses because we don't have time on Sunday morning to work through all 26 of these verses.

But what I want you to pay attention to in Psalm 136 are these different categories of thankfulness that we'll see. And also, most importantly, we're going to see these categories, but there's an underlying structure that girds this, that strengthens this passage. And what that is, is God. God is how we give thanks, why we give thanks, where we find the strength to give thanks. and his loving kindness, which is everlasting. So the structure of this passage, and then we'll read it. The structure is verses one through three. The psalmist give thanks to God for who God is. The focus on these verses is God. And the rest of the thanksgiving that comes out of that flows from the fact that God is God and being thankful that God is God. And he hopefully reminds us by repeating.

A phrase in every verse pointing back to the fact that our thanks is rooted and grounded in who God is. Verses 4 through 9, the psalmist gives thanks to God for his creation of the world, the glory and the power that God displayed by creating. And we can just look outside and see that, right? In verses 10 through 22, the longest section, the psalmist is giving thanks. for God's deliverance of his people. And this is the big view of God's deliverance, right? This is looking at history and seeing God's deliverance. And then we get two verses right after that in our fourth section, which is zooming in and it's saying, thanks to God for his personal deliverance of you. Notice when we get to those verses, the word us, right?

And so we've looked at this large section looking at church history and the history of Israel. And then we just zoom in and we say, okay, us. Thankfulness for what God's done for you. And then the last section, the psalmist gives thanks to God for his care over the creatures. He gives food to all flesh. And so, again, we have this idea and this section is more of the common grace. the daily mercies that God's giving to not just you and your friends and your family and your church, but to the birds, right? To all creatures. So if you will please stand, we will read Psalm 136. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting. Give thanks to the God of gods for his loving kindness is everlasting.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who alone does great wonders for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who made the heavens with skill for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who spread out the earth above the waters for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who made the great lights for his loving kindness is everlasting. The sun to rule by day, for his loving kindness is everlasting. The moon and the stars to rule by night, for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who smote the Egyptians in their firstborn, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And he brought Israel out from their midst, for his loving kindness is everlasting. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who divided the Red Sea asunder, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And he made Israel to pass through the midst of it, for his loving kindness is everlasting. But he overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who led his people through the wilderness, for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who smoked great kings, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And Slu, mighty kings, for his loving kindness is everlasting. Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And Og, king of Bashan, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And he gave their land as a heritage, for his loving kindness is everlasting. Even a heritage to Israel his servant, for his loving kindness is everlasting.

who remembered us in our lowest state for his loving kindness is everlasting and has rescued us from our adversaries for his loving kindness is everlasting, who gives food to all flesh for his loving kindness is everlasting. Give thanks to the God of heaven for his loving kindness is everlasting. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Let's pray. Father. We ask that you would help us to understand your word, that it would bear good fruit in our lives. Give us thankful hearts. May we seek after you and find great joy in the service of you. And in the trials and the hardships of our routines, we ask that you would give us joy. May we thank you. In your son's name, amen. Well, this psalm is very joyful. And reading it should lift your heart. It should cause you a desire to worship God.

It's constantly forcing you to look at God and to see what God has done, which is what we need to do if we're going to be able to give thanks to God in everything. Notice that throughout all the psalm, the psalmist is not simply saying thanks to God for what he's done. He is thanking God for what he's done. And that's... part of giving thanks. You can't really separate that from giving thanks. But his thanks is inextricably linked to who God is. In other words, you could conceive of someone doing some of the acts that it says God's doing here of deliverance, but someone could deliver you from one ill to cause greater ill to you.

But what is undergirding all of God's actions is the fact that it is his goodness and his loving kindness which endures forever. And so not only in our lives are we to look and see what God has done and give him thanks for it, but the understanding of it is that what he does, the actions that he does, the things that we give thanks to him for are rooted and grounded in the character of God. They're grounded in the fact that God is good. And that his loving kindness endures forever towards you. And so you're not at the will of this capricious God who may or may not be working these things for you. So giving thanks cannot be separated from a person. You can't just whisper thanks into the ether. Our thanks should always be directed towards a person, in particular, God. That's why...

You know, this holiday of Thanksgiving really doesn't even make sense if you're not a Christian. Who are you giving thanks to? I guess you thank your relatives who you're getting together with to fight with all day. Like, there's always the jokes about how miserable the holidays are. And what you realize is the jokes are there because there's actually some truth to that. Like, putting everyone together, it can be really hard. And if you don't actually have a God who's undergirding, all that happens to you in promising that he's going to work out everything for your good, who are you giving thanks to? So our thankfulness is rooted in God and in his goodness and in his loving kindness. Well, why do we find it hard to give thanks? Again and again, the scripture is saying, give thanks, give thanks, give thanks to the Lord for he is good and his loving kindness or his mercy endures forever. Why do we find it hard?

Here's a few reasons, all of which are, you know, they're not necessarily super distinct. There's overlap between them. And then I imagine if I were to ask each one of you to give me a list of reasons, yours would be different or you'd find other reasons. But here's some categories to help us start thinking about why we might have trouble giving thanks to God. And perhaps for most of us, It has to do with the fact that we're forgetful. We're forgetful of God's work in the past. Think about what, if we were to think about God's work with Israel, right? Israel is in Egypt as slaves, and God begins to do this great work of deliverance to bring them out. And the whole way they're grumbling and they're complaining about different things. And it's like...

Do you not recall how God's been faithful to Israel in the past, right? They should have found pleasure and they should have found joy and thankfulness in the fact that God had called Abram out, given him a new name, called him Abraham, and promised to make him a great nation and give him a land, right? But they seem to forget all that. They always seem to have amnesia. God had created the world. God had been faithful to Abraham. And yet there's this dis... There's this lack of joy and gratitude as they're being brought out of Egypt, as if they've just forgotten everything that had preceded, their own history, their own faithfulness that God had shown them, the loving kindness he had. And another stark example of this that recently when I was reading just kind of blew my mind was you read through the story of Korodathan and Abiram. Korodathan and Abiram have seen all of God's goodness.

They're partway through their wandering in the wilderness. And one day, they decide that, you know what, God hasn't just decided to speak with Moses, but, you know, we should also be the leaders, and we should have power, and Moses isn't the one who should be the only leader over us. And so they start this rebellion against God and against Moses. God, Moses prays to God and asks God to deal with it. What God does is he opens the earth up. and closes it on them. And all Israel's terrified. Then they go home and think about it overnight. And what makes sense to them, the very next day, it says in the passage, the next day, they come to Moses and they say, you're killing God's people. It's your fault they died. And you're like, who opened the earth?

Who killed these people? And so part of our complaining and part of our lack of thankfulness is just because we just have such short memories. We don't think about what God has just done. Like it's the next day they've seen God's power and his faithfulness and his loving kindness shown towards Moses. And then the next day they want to blame him, right? And they don't want to give thanks to God or fear God. And so it's just our forgetfulness. is one of the reasons why I think we don't give thanks. It's because we don't notice what God's done and we don't remember it. Another reason that we find it hard to be thankful is because we have a skewed perspective. And this is shown in a number of ways. Often it is because we feel like we're owed something. So we don't necessarily notice what God's done or is doing because we think that...

any good thing that's happened to us is actually something that was owed to us. The Israelites, again, we can think of as we're thinking about their deliverance out of Egypt, right? God gives them manna. They're thankful for a little time. And then they're like, we actually deserve meat. We think that we're owed ease and comfort, that we deserve these things. We've worked hard for them. And so anyone who gets in the way of our ease and comfort is a problem because we deserve ease and comfort because we worked hard to get our ease and comfort. And so maybe we aren't thankful for the opportunity and joy it is to discipline our children because they've inconvenienced us and we're tired. We just have a skewed perspective where if you think everything good that happens to you is owed to you, If you think everything is owed to you, then you won't be thankful for it. You won't view it as the gift from God that it is. No one actually pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. Every one of us stands on the shoulders of other people. Yes, a workman is due his wages, and God takes it very seriously for those who do not pay the workman his wage. And yet, there are plenty of people who do the work.

and don't receive the wage. If you receive your wages, though they are due to you, you ought to be grateful that you received them because it is God's mercy to you, right? Even the things that you think you most are owed because you've worked hard for them, they're actually a gift of God. And you can look around and you can see God is good, and yet there are people who don't have good things that you have. God doesn't owe it to you to give you any good thing. He does it out of his own goodness. And so you ought to be thankful for the good things that you have. Another reason our perspective is off is because we actually think that we deserve better than what we've been given. And so you're given something nice, but it's the wrong brand or whatever. Someone brings you a meal, but...

They put that one thing in it that you just don't like. So now you're grumpy. And it's like, you didn't deserve that. Someone loved you and made you a meal. Be grateful. Be thankful that they cared for you, right? So sometimes we think, well, we deserve better than we actually have. And so our lack of gratitude, our lack of thankfulness is because we don't realize that what we actually deserve is death, right? And in relation to the fact that the wages of your sin is death, then everything that you receive good, everything you receive other than death is a blessing from God because what you really should be receiving is eternal torment and hell. And so if you begin to adjust your perspective to see that, it's really easy or it's a lot easier to be thankful for what you do have because you've been given so much more than what you deserve.

Related to this, maybe another broad category is why we're not thankful for things is because we've forgotten. So God does acts where we're grateful for something we've received. We praise God. We thank him for it. And we sort of talked about this, but we just don't see it anymore because we forgot it. Maybe part of the reason we're not thankful for things is because we're always distracted, right? You know, we're... paging through our phones. We hate any sort of silence and dead time. So we're listening to music, we're listening to podcasts, we're listening to sermons, whatever. And we forget to actually be thankful for what God's doing because we don't have any downtime to actually sit still and think about what God's done for us, who God is. And so one of the reasons we can be unthankful is because we don't...

We never actually took the time to notice the things that we should be thankful for. Maybe one of the other reasons is that we have grown up in a culture that teaches evolution and is very science-y. And so we don't, we think that laws govern everything. And we forget that it's actually God who governs everything. And so the blessings that we receive are from a natural process, not from the hand of God. Well, God is consistent. He's orderly. And so we can look at nature and we can see the results of God's creation and the laws that he's put into place. But just because God...

has said that gravity is going to keep you on the ground doesn't mean that you oughtn't to give God thanks for the fact that gravity keeps you at the ground. But if we look at everything as a naturalistic process and divorce God's actively ordaining it every day, every day his mercies are new, right? Maybe the reason the sun comes up every morning is because God commands it every morning. Maybe it wasn't just a one-time command. This is what Chesterton says. But maybe God just enjoys seeing the sun come up. And so every morning he commands it again. He commands it again, right? And so often our thankfulness is because we don't actually see the person behind the good things that happen. We don't see God's person behind it. We just think it's a result of X plus Y equals this, right? But probably the hardest, probably the biggest reason, that we don't give thanks. It's simply that life's hard. The funeral liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, 1549. I remember being at a funeral one time and hearing these words read, and I was offended. I was like, what? The words are, man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and it is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower.

He flyeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay. I heard that and I was a little bit offended. I was like, really? That seems really grim. That seems like a very unhappy perspective. I think that's a young man's opinion. Someone who hasn't experienced much of life. Because the reality is life is full of a lot of misery and a lot of hard things. And you are a shadow, right? You are all a swerve from the center line away from death. Life is hard. We're going to go through awful things, right? Loved ones will die. We'll face debilitating diseases. There will be divorces, adulteries, and more. There are genuinely hard things we have to go through. But life isn't just hard because of those terrible things we have to go through.

Life is also hard because we have to go through daily hardships. We have to deal with loneliness, unfulfilled desires, fights with our wives and husbands. We have to go through disciplining children and changing dirty diapers. We have to deal with job loss. We have to deal with working late hours. We have to deal with hunger, right? The endless preparation of meals. And on and on the list can go. Like just daily things that you have to do every day that are hard and you're tired of doing it and you'd rather not do it. And those are just a few of the reasons we struggle with giving thanks and everything. And I can't make those go away. I can't give you an answer that is going to be a pat answer and just going to make you immediately flip a switch and find.

joy, and all of those hard things. I don't think I even wish I could, honestly. The Bible does not promise us an easy life. It doesn't promise us that we're going to float through it in sunshine and roses. What I can do is exhort you to give thanks to God, for he's good and his loving kindness endures forever. That in all of these hard things that you have to face and go through, whether they are the major hardships of life or whether it's the day-to-day grind, I can exhort you to reflect on who God is and to give thanks to him in all things. For his loving kindness endures forever, for he is good. How can we learn to give thanks in all things? The first thing is we must focus on.

God. I don't think that this point can be emphasized enough. The first three verses of Psalm 136 remind us who God is. And then it's repeated in every single verse. Remember that God is good. His loving kindness is everlasting. You may not see how it is all going to work out now. But if you understand that God is good and that his loving kindness is everlasting, it can give you joy and thankfulness. in the process, even though you might not see how all of it's being worked out. You were created to give God glory. And so you'll never be happy or give God thanks until you begin to seek to do that. Now, I'm going to read you a quote from R.C. Sproul. Because giving thanks in all things, it doesn't mean that we have to thank God for evil acts. Evil acts are Evil acts. God hates evil. What Sproul says is that God has such a disposition towards us in Christ that even in our afflictions, we have large occasions for thanksgiving. For what is fitter or more suitable for pacifying us than when we learn that God embraces us in Christ so tenderly that he turns to our advantage in our welfare everything that befalls us?

Let us therefore bear in mind that this is a special remedy for correcting our impatience, to turn away our eyes from beholding the present evils that torment us and to direct our views to a consideration of a different nature, how God stands affected towards us in Christ. And so this idea is that in the hardships of life, in these struggles, there's joy and we can have thankfulness. And turning from focusing on the problems that are right here and focusing on God and who he is. And this is why I say knowing God is what undergirds our thankfulness. The next thing is, you know, remembering God's faithfulness in his deliverances. It's interesting reading Psalm 136. Thank God for his deliverances.

You know, we praise him for this parting of the Red Seas and how he pulled the Israelites out of Egypt and all these things. But if you actually go through and read through those sections, how thankful was Israel when all that was happening? How many times are they wishing they were back in Egypt? You brought us into the wilderness to be killed and to die, right? And so when we're going through hard things, It's helpful for us to remember how God's been faithful in the past because sometimes it's really hard to see how he's being faithful to you in the present. But by remembering how he's been faithful to us in the past, it can help us to actually begin to see how he's being faithful to us in the present. And so we can see these patterns and these lessons that will begin to emerge. So have faith to give thanks to God. God's faithfulness in the past.

can give you strength to go through today, tomorrow, Thursday, the next week. But I want to say, too, this isn't actually just tied to Scripture and thinking of God's faithfulness in Scripture. This is actually a lot bigger than that. You can read the early church history and see how God preserved his people. If you look at... some of the controversies, the Christological heresies. And it seems like the church was going to embrace a heresy. And it seems like it's on the knife's edge. And you see how God worked by certain people dying and raising up certain leaders and certain men becoming emperors. It's amazing to see God's faithfulness to his church. But it's not just the early church. We could read about the Reformation. It's not just the Reformation.

You could go and you could talk to the leaders at the Trinity Reformed in Bloomington and see how God was faithful to them, which led to, you know, being planted, right? Talk to the leadership here. Maybe you were here and you know how God's shown faithfulness to our church. And you say, well, God's been faithful now. As we face... the issues that are coming up and the trajectory we have going forward, he'll be faithful again. And we can see this by looking back, right? And the same thing applies to you. Notice what he says at the very end of the passage when it zooms in and talks about our own thankfulness, who, that's God, right, remembered us in our lowest state. Spurgeon says, our prayer is, Lord, remember me.

And this is our encouragement. He has remembered us. For the Lord even to think of us is a wealth of mercy. So you want to be thankful? Well, God's loving kindness to you. He thinks of you. How do you know he thinks of you? Well, his word tells us. But also, did you have food? Did you have a nice warm vehicle to get here in? Can you imagine if you had to drive to church on a horse or in a covered wagon? We have vehicles that move that are heated bubbles in a cold world. Think of your salvation. God has been merciful to you. Though you were trying to run away from him as far as you could, desirous of the darkness, God plucked you out of your sin, turned you around, said, run to me. And if you're a Christian, you did. That is mercy. That is something worthy of giving thanks to God for.

So look for God's everyday faithfulness. God feeds all flesh. You don't have to start really big and look for the great thing, the deliverance from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea. You can start real small by being thankful for the fact that you have a bed to sleep in, covers, food, shelter, a job. We could just go on and on. You can start real small even. and say, look, has God not given you daily mercies? Has he stripped everything away from you? What you deserve is death, but he's given you mercy. And this is really shown in Luke 12, when God says to give thanks to the Lord. And he says, oh, you have little faith. I have a story.

Consider all the lilies, how they grow. And Solomon, all his robes of glory were not as beautiful we know, right? And he goes on to say that the grass withers and perishes, but he clothes it finally while it lives. And if God cares about the grass and the birds, how much more does he care about you? You're the crown of his creation. So to learn thankfulness, we need to focus on God and not on ourselves and our circumstances. We need to remember God's faithfulness in the past. Big picture. You need to remember God's faithfulness to you in your own life and look for God's everyday faithfulness. A couple ideas and then we're done. Keep a journal. Every day, write down five things that God has done and give thanks to him for them. That will change your perspective. That will like lift your eyes from the problems right here and help you to focus on God. Devote part of your prayers.

to thanking God for who he is and what he's done and is doing. Think about it. Make a point to have a conversation with someone every day where you thank God for something and for his faithfulness that he's shown to you or for the people around you. If you do this, you will encourage others and you'll help them to begin seeing what God's doing and the things that he's doing for you and showing you. Sing songs of thankfulness. Maybe write one. Set a reminder on your phone to be thankful. Make a memorial so that you can remember God's goodness to you and his loving kindness. Those are just a few ways that can help you to learn to change your perspective, to give thanks to God as you journey through life. I exhort you to take time today and the rest of this week and going forward to consider who God is.

Consider his attributes, his faithfulness, his goodness, his loving kindness. Not just theoretically out there, but to you. Look at what he has done and what he's doing. Record it. Remember it. So that we can give thanks together for our good God. Let's pray.