Does God Really Expect Me to Give Thanks During Hard Times?

Dr. Martyn-Lloyd Jones famously said,

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”

He was discussing Psalm 42, where the psalmist takes his roaming thoughts in hand and says, in essence: Now listen up, self. Don’t be cast down. Hope in God.

This little exchange has been running through my mind all week, because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of letting our internal dialogue narrate our day indiscriminately. If we let those thoughts run amok, there’s no telling what might pop up.

I don’t know about you, but often the very first thought that comes into my mind in the morning when the alarm goes off is negative. “Oh, no. It’s time to get up. Not yet, please.”

Maybe you pop out of bed smiling and ready to take on the day, but that negative thought crops up later in your morning: “I’m tired of this quarantine – when will our leaders get their act together? I can’t believe she posted that on Facebook – doesn’t she know that’s totally a conspiracy theory? Why can’t my kids just listen?”

I’m not saying it’s wrong to ask tough questions, to check facts, or to have discussions. Not at all. The problem comes when we allow our negative feelings about those interactions to rule our thoughts. That’s when we start the downward spiral that ends in discouragement and bitterness.

So what can we do instead? The psalmist gives us the answer:

“My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you…By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me – a prayer to the God of my life.”

Psalm 42:6, 8

Twice in this psalm and once in the next, the psalmist schools his thoughts with these words: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God!”

Hope in God Starts with Giving Thanks

But even though we know this, even though we believe it, sometimes that negative dialogue still takes over and narrates our day. When that happens, it’s time to take our thoughts in hand and turn them in a different direction. But how?

Based on patterns we find in Scripture, changing our thoughts begins with giving thanks. 

The specific phrase “give thanks” is mentioned 73 times in the Bible, and the idea of rejoicing or praising God is repeated hundreds of times. In fact, this concept of thanking and praising God is one of the most frequent commands in Scripture.

But that’s not so easy to do when it feels like things are falling apart. Does God really expect us to give thanks right now, during COVID-19?

James 1:2-3 instructs us to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

James walks us through this process of counting it all joy by directing us to God for wisdom, admonishing us to ask in faith, and showing us the source of our temptation – our own desires. But then he does something interesting. He turns our attention to the Giver of gifts. Every good gift comes from God, he says, and God never changes. He brought us forth of His own will, by the word of truth (James 1:17-18).

At the heart of joy in trials, according to James, is recognition of who is in charge and who gives us all the good things in our lives in the first place. Counting it all joy starts with gratitude.

Why God Cares About My Gratitude

When you ask a group of kids what they’re thankful for, you usually get one-word answers like house, toys, food, parents, dog, etc. These are concrete answers from children who are still learning that every single thing in their lives comes from God, and He deserves to be thanked for them. It’s a beautiful thing to see them thinking through what God has given them.

As adults, it is still right and good to thank God for the specific people, things, and circumstances He gives us. Gratitude is certainly not less than this. But it is also much more. As our understanding of God’s nature grows, our thanks should also take on a deeper dimension. God wants us to see the imprint of His Son on our whole lives. He wants us to see Him as the Giver of all things, because it is only then that we can recognize His hand in our unique circumstances.  

Piper puts it this way: “The Giver gets the glory.” If we are to obey I Corinthians 10:31, which exhorts us to “do all to the glory of God,” then we must start with gratitude. We can’t give God glory if we do not recognize him as the Giver of all things. We can’t glorify God if we aren’t thankful. There is no separating the two.

So what does this mean when I roll out of bed in the morning and I want to smash my alarm clock? What does it mean when I look at the morning headlines and I see lack of consensus among health experts, new COVID-19 cases and death counts, and economic chaos? What about when my small business can’t recover from weeks of being closed, or I’m not approved for an SBA loan? What about when I lose my job or my child is running from God?

What does it mean to give thanks when nothing seems to be going right?

It means that –

“This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him.”

Lamentations 3:21-24

It means that I recognize that Jesus Christ is the source of anything good in my life. It is the gospel – the good news of what Jesus has done for me – that makes it possible for me to find joy in this life, no matter what each new day may bring. It means running to Christ when everything around me looks hopeless and finding my hope in Him.

It means that gratitude is at the heart of my relationship with God, because it is gratitude that recognizes my place before a holy God as an undeserving recipient of His lavish grace.

Does God really expect me to give thanks during hard times? Yes, He does.

And He is truly worthy.