The Christian Grace of Thankfulness (Colossians 3:15)...Continued from page 1

Our human desire for thanks is an echo from the heart of God. He, too, wants to be thanked. He expects us to show our gratitude for all His wonderful goodness to us. The Old Testament, as well as the New, rings with the summons to thanksgiving.

Listen to the psalmist, as he cries, "O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!" (Psa. 95:1-2).

And again, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name!" (Psa. 100:4).

Psalm 150, the grand finale of the Psalter, is composed entirely of a chain of 13 commands to praise the Lord. It closes with a call to all living creatures to join together in a swelling chorus of praise to Him. "Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" (Psa. 150:6).

"Where are the nine?" Jesus asked, when only one of 10 lepers He had healed, a despised Samaritan, returned to express his gratitude. "Was no one found to return and give thanks except this foreigner?" (Lk. 17:17-18). That note of disappointment at human ingratitude is as much a revelation of the Father's heart as anything our Lord ever said or did.

God looks for and delights in the thanksgiving of His grateful people. Should not you and I, then, delight to give it to Him? Should we not assign to thanksgiving a much larger place in our prayers?

The Cause of Our Thankfulness

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits" (Psa. 103:2). What a mighty impulse to thankfulness lies in those three words of the psalmist: "all his benefits"! As the English poet Joseph Addison put it:

"Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ."

Let me suggest to you a Thanksgiving Day exercise that our family has found to be both helpful and revealing. After you have feasted on your sumptuous dinner of turkey with all the trimmings, ask each member of the family--be sure that you don't leave out any of the children, even the youngest--to take a sheet of paper and write down all the things he is thankful for.

When this is done, ask each one to read his list to the rest. Then ask the whole family to join together in prayer, as each, in turn, gives thanks to God for the blessings he has thought of. I know of no better way to stimulate the spirit of thankfulness in our hearts and in our homes.