Thankfulness in a Time of Pandemic

It’s easy to be grateful in times of ease. Jobs seem steady, the kids are all doing relatively well, our marriages seem to be flourishing, friendships are strong, and our health seems good. Gratitude would seem to be in abundant supply in circumstances like these.

But I suspect you’ve discovered in your own life that this is rarely the case. Indeed, when circumstances are good and easy, gratitude is often conspicuously faint, or absent altogether. Instead, we rush along, presuming upon these circumstances. Perhaps we think we’ve put in the work to merit them as earned outcomes (e.g. “Of course my kids are doing well… I parented them right!”). Or perhaps we think, even subconsciously, that we are somehow entitled to them by virtue of our mere humanity or some moral standing (e.g. “I’m a pretty good person--at least more moral than most--so things should go well for me.”).

Of course, the biblical account tells us a very different story. Our entire existence--even the very breath we draw--is dependent on the Sovereign Creator and Lord of all things. Indeed, in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). 

It is often in those times of greatest hardship that we are most aware of the Lord’s faithfulness and kindness.

And so it seems that it is often in hardship, in times of great loss, pain, or difficulty, that God impresses afresh on our hearts how profound His love for us truly is, how infinite his grace is in Christ, and how fresh his mercies are each new morning. It is often in those times of greatest hardship that we are most aware of the Lord’s faithfulness and kindness.

Perhaps that has been your experience in this past year. Very few of us would point to our circumstances and conclude that they are ideal. We are living through a global pandemic that has swept through communities, leaving families to grieve, our neighbors with ongoing health concerns, and inflicted disruption of every facet of our communities and our lives. In the United States, we have weathered a presidential election--and a broader moment in American civic life--that seems to have us more divided than ever, plagued by acrimony and discord. 

And yet, God is with His people. So as Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this week, here are just a few reminders about the nature of Christian gratitude. 

Christian Thankfulness Is Fundamentally Godward

Perhaps this should go without saying, but it’s hard to “give thanks” if you don’t know who to thank. There is a hollowness to secularity, one that carves out any sense of our human finitude against the backdrop of an infinitely powerful and wise God. 

To know the one true and living God is to know that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).

To be truly and fully human means, in some very real sense, to be mindful of our own frailty and to therefore have hearts bent toward thanksgiving and praise to the triune God. We are at our most human, living according to God’s design as His image-bearers when gratitude to God is our most fundamental attitude.

Christian Thankfulness Is More About People than Things

There are a great many things for which we are to give thanks. But I am struck by the emphasis of thankfulness. Most fundamentally, a Christian is one whose life is marked by gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ. However, when surveying the things of this life which should provoke us to thankfulness, it seems clear that the Bible emphasizes people far more than things.

When surveying the things of this life which should provoke us to thankfulness, it seems clear that the Bible emphasizes people far more than things.

Consider how often the Apostle Paul references this in his own writings. For example, in writing to the church at Corinth--an especially troubled congregation!--Paul opens by assuring them that what marks his prayers for them is gratitude to the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:4). He also does the same in his letters to the Ephesians and the Thessalonians (Ephesians 1:16; 1 Thessalonians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:3; 2:13).

We can and should thank the Lord for his material provision, for the security we enjoy, for the good health with which He has blessed us, and for every other kindness He has shown us. But notice that Paul’s heart is inclined to thank God for other believers. Indeed, Paul was familiar with great suffering. He knew what it was like to be persecuted, to endure financial hardship, to feel the aching pain of bodily beatings and deteriorating health. But by cultivating gratitude for Christian brothers and sisters, he found an opportunity for thanksgiving that was not dependent on his material possessions or circumstances.

This is contrary to the spirit of the age. Our world has always been consumed by the material. And idolatry tempts us to believe the lie that the things of this world can do for us, or be for us, what only God can do or be. And so we worship the creation rather than the creator. 

As you pause this week for Thanksgiving, who in your life provokes you to thankfulness to God? Perhaps it’s evidences of God’s grace you see in family members, in co-workers, or in fellow church members. It may be that you’re mindful of how God has sustained you in this past year through the love of other Christians who demonstrated Christ-like compassion for you. It may be that God used a Christian friend to lovingly confront you in an area of your life that, if left unaddressed, could have led you down an especially frightening path. However God has done it, my guess is that the blessings of Christian friendships and fellowship have been a far greater blessing to you this year than any material circumstance or comfort.

Christian Thankfulness Is Resilient

Gratitude to the Lord that is anchored only in material circumstances is rather flimsy. In fact, the moment those circumstances are disrupted, our joy and thankfulness are dislodged. 

But Christian thankfulness has the ability to be remarkably resilient. 

That’s because at its deepest level, the basis for Christian thankfulness is in the unchanging and certain promises of the gospel. 

Consider how Paul situates thankfulness in his retelling of what God has done for us in Christ:

“We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:9-14).

Our inheritance, our rescue, our new citizenship, our redemption, our forgiveness—each of these is secure in Christ and immune to whatever tomorrow’s headlines may bring.

Circumstances in life can change, even in an instant. Perhaps this past year has been a vivid and painful reminder to you of that reality. But for the Christian, what will never change is the settled reality of God’s loving and gracious saving power. Our inheritance, our rescue, our new citizenship, our redemption, our forgiveness—each of these is secure in Christ and immune to whatever tomorrow’s headlines may bring.

In fact, the Apostle Paul seems to suggest that this is the reason we can and must “give thanks in everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). If you’re a Christian, even on your hardest day, when your heart is breaking and you don’t know if you can bear much more, there is still the ability to cry out to the Lord with gratitude and to bless his name. Like Job, we can say, “The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

Christian Thankfulness Looks Forward, Not Only Backward

Most of the time, when we call to mind the reasons for thankfulness we think of present realities or past gifts and blessings. We can and should thank God for each of these.

But Christian thankfulness does not only look back to past demonstrations of God’s faithfulness, nor is it limited to an accounting of present blessings and provision. It goes further, looking forward onto the horizons of our futures marked by uncertainty in so many ways, but confident in what is sure: God will keep His promises, every one of them.

You may feel yourself weary, but God will be your strength. You may feel lonely and isolated in this present moment, but God will never leave you or forsake you. You may wonder if you will finish the race well, but God promises to keep every one of His own in His grace. Sin has been defeated and death overcome.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

Christian people are a people of hope, a certain confidence that God will do what He has promised, that He will prove His faithfulness in the future just as He has in the past. 

So whatever your Thanksgiving holiday looks like this year, no matter how different and disappointing the circumstances may be, take heart. Give thanks to God. He truly is the giver of all good gifts and there is no greater gift that He can give than the gift of Himself.