Psalm 118

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting."  Psalm 118:1 (NASB)

As we draw closer to Thanksgiving I always think about this verse.  One of the reasons this keeps coming to me is life experience.  As a child it is easy to be thankful when things go the way that we want.  When we get the things that we asked for on our Christmas list for example, it is easy to say thank you.  But I remember the great grandmother I had who always gave me a pair of socks.  It was harder to be thankful for that.  Now as an adult looking back and knowing that she made a pair of socks for each of her kids , their kids, and their kids as a close to 90 year old woman I can appreciate more the work and sacrifice.  I do not know, but it is quite possible she had arthritis and making these socks was a labor of love, but I did not process all of that as a child.  I only noticed how I did not really want socks and wished she would give me money instead. 

The problem with this type of thinking is not just childish because we as adults tend to think this way as well.  The real problem here is that thanksgiving becomes dependent on circumstance.  When things happen in a good way I will give thanks, but when they do not I will struggle.  And into this circumstantial thanksgiving drops this truth from Psalm 118.  I am to give thanks to God because He is good.

Notice that it does not say that we are to give thanks to God because everything we experience we would call good.  In fact the Scriptures are clear that we will have trouble and turmoil and trials.  And yet in the good and the bad in our experience, in our circumstance, in all of it - GOD IS GOOD.  And that is enough for us to give thanks.