A Sacrifice of Thanks

November 14, 2023

One year our three year old daughter, Caroline, received a Cabbage Patch elf doll from her grandfather. Even we could see that the gift her older sister had received was way cuter than the elf doll! Instead of saying thank you, she cried and exclaimed, “I want a baby doll like Elizabeth got!” Boy, we were embarrassed by her reaction to the present but there was no “forcing” her to say thank you to her Grandfather when she really didn’t mean it.

Thankfully, God doesn’t force us to say thank you either. He knows it may take time for our emotions to catch up with our reality and hindsight often reveals the beauty in the gifts we’ve been given that at first we do not want! Like the cancer my friend has that is the gift nobody wants. And yet she has told me that she feels closer now to God (and even to her family) than before she began all her cancer treatments.

To sacrifice a thanks offering IN ADVANCE of seeing the benefits takes faith, doesn’t it? Sometimes it even takes a step of obedience to “give thanks IN all circumstances” trusting that God will work it all out for our good and for his glory. (I Thessalonians 5:18)

As you look in the rear view mirror of your life, is there a circumstance for which you can now give thanks to God?