The Joy of Having Someone to Thank

G.K. Chesterton said, “[A man cannot be thankful] without connecting it to theology, unless he can do it without connecting it to thought. If he can manage to be thankful when there is nobody to be thankful to, and no good intentions to be thankful for, then he is simply taking refuge in being thoughtless in order to avoid being thankless.”

Giving thanks is a holy activity. When gratitude and joy collide in the realization that what we desperately needed and could not do for ourselves has been done for us in Christ, thanksgiving becomes an act of worship. We have Someone to thank. Our salvation he accomplished and our faith he authored. Everything we need to live in Christ, God has given.

So I receive from his hand what he has for me. I receive affliction. I receive uncertainty. I receive the passage of time, and all that fills it. I receive the way God is rearranging my life, and my wife’s life, our children’ lives. I see through a glass darkly, but I thank my God for his loving-kindness. All I have needed, his hand hath provided.