“One-A-Week Challenge” – Week 13

“Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.”

Psalm 107:8 NIV

gratitude_gemCicero wrote, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”[1]  Gratitude is the bedrock of our disposition in life.  Several years ago I was tasked with the responsibility of speaking to an influential group of business leaders about how to allow their faith to be a natural part of their business life.  While flying back from Africa as I was praying, reading, and thinking about what I was going to say to them, the Lord impressed upon my heart three simple words.  These three words nearly instantaneously became my mantra for many future lessons.  It was on a United Airlines napkin that I scribbled down, Grateful, Gracious, and Generous.  Thus was born the “Three G’s.”

Whenever we begin (and end) our day in a place of gratitude we will be stacking up stockpile for the future.  I encourage you to write down three things for which you are grateful each day and use them to remind yourself of all that God is doing in your life.

The Psalmist in this week’s verse gives us three very specific things for which we should be grateful:

1.     We are to be thankful for the Lord.  We serve an awesome God who is supreme Lord over all.  We have been given the wonderful privilege of not only having a God, but having a Lord.  The word translated Lord here means, “the One who was, who is, and who always will be and the name in relation to God’s redemptive work.”  We serve a God who redeemed us and will never forsake us.

2.     We are to be thankful for all He is. We will never be disappointed by the Lord.  The Psalmist says, we are thankful for His unfailing love. The word literally means the Lord’s kindness, mercy, goodness, faithfulness, love, and acts of kindness. The love of God is eternal.  Paul wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

3.     We are to be thankful for His wonderful deeds for all mankind. The wonder of God is far above our comprehension.  As the Hebrew verb means “to do something wonderful, to do something extraordinary, or difficult.”[2] Although nothing is too hard or extraordinary for God, many of His deeds are beyond our abilities to comprehend.  I think Isaiah says it best when he wrote “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:8–9