Choicest Pearls

Give thanks. It is a cry and a command, a tradition and a trajectory, a practice and a partaking, a feast in our famine. 

Give Thanks. Two words like a crash of lightning that can change the entire landscape of our lives. Offering gratitude can unlock the believer’s heart for true worship. It is the undoing of ourselves and the making much of someone else, namely Christ. 

Give thanks. We have heard it so much during this season that it has almost lost its meaning.

Even in the best of circumstances, maybe Thanksgiving doesn’t feel like you want it to feel. Your expectations are not being met. God’s lavishness has lost its luster.

Or perhaps you are not spending it with your beloved family and friends. Maybe you are spending it with your family, but the deep hurts that reside within those walls make going home excruciating, suffocating. This might be your first Thanksgiving without someone you love. Last year, we buried my precious dad at Thanksgiving. Maybe the empty seat at your house casts a shadow on the ones that are filled.

For you, giving thanks may feel courageous. It might be painful and difficult and lonely. It could require a mustering of incredible strength to utter the life-giving words.

Look at Psalm 103:1-4--

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy…”

David, though he has had every material gift at his disposal, is so moved toward gratitude for the intangibles: God’s forgiveness, His healing, His redemption, His love and mercy. David knows something of grace.

“David selects a few of the choicest pearls from the casket of divine love, threads them on the string of memory, and hangs them about the neck of gratitude. Pardoned sin is, in our experience, one of the choicest boons of grace, one of the earliest gifts of mercy,—in fact, the needful preparation for enjoying all that follows it.”- C. H. Spurgeon

Thanksgiving is not just one day. It is an everyday celebration of the perfect provision of a good God, especially in the midst of trying circumstances. We credit God, we recognize God, we bless His name. If you are in Christ, be thankful for Jesus, the Pearl of great price, in whom we have been given every good gift. 

Perhaps the only thing you can thank God for is the breath to speak the words to Him. Then thank Him for the breath. Offer him the fragments of your heart with the promise and expectation that He will make something beautiful from the ashes in His time.

Give thanks. Tomorrow is an opportunity to choose which way we will steer our hearts. Gratitude is the rudder that can change the entire course of your little ship. Offering thanks, especially in the midst of suffering, releases the storehouses of pain to erupt in a flood of praise. Grief to gratitude. 

Painful was the day my Dad landed safely on heaven’s side, and as awful as it still feels, not a day goes by when I don’t thank God for my dad. God has guided my heart to thank Him for this path He has chosen for me, though I would never have chosen it for myself.

Thanking God and even praising Him for the events in your life that have decimated you can free you from the bitterness and hurt of circumstances and lift your heart to the eternal hope of knowing Christ. Thank Him FOR the hard things, not in spite of them. Give away the famine and feast on Christ. His banquet table is everlasting.

Dear friend, what are your choicest pearls? What will you thread together from your memory to hang about His neck?

Gorge your soul on the goodness of a loving, forgiving, and sovereign God this day.
He is pardon. He is joy.

Come Thou Fount of every blessing, tune our hearts to sing Thy praise. 

Give thanks.