We thank people for helping us, encouraging us, defending us, and so on.
And while it is true we sometimes say thank you “in advance,” thankfulness is mostly after the fact.
Some of the reasons for not offering thanks to others beforehand is that we do not know what the future holds and whether we will feel truly thankful for whatever the outcome may be.
Thankfulness seems to have a cause-and-effect component. If this, then that. If something results in good, we are thankful. If it does not, while we may appreciate the effort, true gratitude cannot be fully realized.
But is this a proper way to consider thankfulness to God?
The bible is filled with promises that will occur in the future. If we choose to believe in these, it seems obvious that we should be grateful now because we are assured of a prescribed outcome.
The noblest of people may not be able to fulfill a promise even if they are trustworthy to a fault.
For example, you trust a devoted friend to do something completely in keeping with their character, but in a fateful moment they die suddenly, or become incapacitated, or are at a minimum derailed in some fashion due to no fault of their own. The promise is good, but the outcome is out of control because of the untenable circumstances.
If a person, however, has a presumed belief in God and more specifically, His promises, then it seems reasonable that such a person should trust the promise and future unequivocally. And if so, then gratitude can and should be offered in advance as well as after the fact.
The writer of the New Testament bible book, Hebrews, understood the deepest meaning of this kind of trust when he wrote, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
It is worthy of our time to ask if our belief, trust, and assurance, in God’s promises are only offered in gratitude in the rearview mirror of life.
Would your faith waiver if the outcome you perceived to be right was not what God was apparently doing? And since no one sees the future, especially the distant future, we most certainly cannot rely on the myopic vision we have in the here and now.
Trust in God is complete trust in Him, or it is a cause-and-effect relationship. The thinking may be like this; “God if you are good to me or I am pleased with your path for me, then I trust. But if you fail me, whatever I perceive Your failure to be, then my belief in your benevolence and care with be thwarted and I will lose faith.”
This Thanksgiving season, I hope you and I can be both thankful for our past blessings and have a sense of anticipation for the good things ahead that God has promised.
If God said it, then be thankful for it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Kent Simmons is the pastor of Canyon Community Church in Kingman, AZ.
