Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart

By Tom Cramer

At Jan’s and my wedding and my ordination service, I asked the worship leaders to include a  popular praise chorus of that era. If I was going to take vows in front of a whole bunch of people, especially vows that seemed impossible to keep perfectly, I wanted a reminder of what God had done for me and, more importantly, for all of us who seek to live differently because of God’s gift in Jesus Christ.

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because God has given Jesus Christ, God’s Son

We can give thanks with grateful hearts not because we are innately “good,” much less “holy” in the sense of “pious,” but because God has claimed us by a love that we do not deserve or fully understand. And so, as a way of leaning into this love, embracing it to the extent God’s grace allows, we write music and sing songs and give thanks. Yet even of more significance, we also learn to care for the economically poor, the foreigner in our midst, and to love our enemies as Jesus taught us to do.

As the praise chorus continues, we hear words that never fail to make me weep.

And now let the weak say, “I am strong”
Let the poor say, “I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us”

As the same sentiment has been said in different ways, “The miracle of the gospel is that God accepts us as we are but doesn’t leave us that way.” In all the ways we are weak—our insecurity, our shame, our seeming inability to do the right thing —we are made strong. In all the ways we are poor—our financial giving, our influence over our families and society, in treating our neighbors as ourselves—we are made rich.  Maybe not all at once, but over time we see how far God has taken us, and all we have left to say to God is, “Thank you.”

Wherever you are this Thanksgiving, may this song remind you that you are infinitely loved by a God who is at work in your life, and as the Apostle Paul might say, “Doing all this for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God” (2 Cor 4:15).