Too Busy to Give Thanks

I wrote this article for the church newsletter I design on a monthly basis, and thought it was blog-worthy.


"Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song." Psalm 95:2


I have a confession: I usually read verses like the one above and skim over them, seeing them as a waste of time. I mean, I live in New York now! And New Yorkers aren't the kind of people who pretend like everything is fine and dandy when it obviously is not. Face the facts, man. "It is what it is," (an expression I learned here). And who has the time for praise, anyway? There is work to be done, there are projects to finish, and I'm busy trying to become something. (Good thing God loves me as much as He does!) They say you teach what you most need to learn, so here I am.

Thanksgiving is this month, and so it seems time to face verses like the one at the top there. What does it mean to give thanks, even when things aren't going my way, and to be sincere about it, not just pretending to be some sort of religious angel? Why does the Bible keep talking about music and song? You'd think I'd have this figured out, since I often sing with the music group on Sundays, but I don't. Instead, I tend to treat these verses like fluff, and then wonder, when things don't go my way or I seem to be losing a dream I'd longed for (where I am lately), why life suddenly seems so bleak and colorless and I just don't have the strength to love the people around me or to find joy.

Yesterday, my husband and I were watching the movie The Fellowship of the Ring for probably the seventh time, and I found myself envying the hobbits, these simple, boisterous, creatures in the movie who, no matter what age, seem to possess the uncluttered joy of children just discovering the world. Why can't my life be full of community like that, of joy like that? Why does my life seem so complicated and sad in comparison?

I think I've been too proud to praise, too thick to thank Him. So, let me start now. What do I have to thank Him for today? The sun that came up again. Electric lights. Indoor plumbing. My husband. A cell phone that works. Breath. Clothes. Food. Shelter. Health. Strength. A voice that works. Hands that can type this. A brain that can think well. A coat for when it's cold...oh my goodness, this list could get very long. Thanksgiving: a new lifestyle.

It just might be that thanksgiving is the rope He's been throwing down to me in this well. Maybe He commands me in the Bible to praise, not because he wants me to pretend that life is perfect, shoving down my pain, but because He wants me to see Him meeting with me in my pain, lavishing me with love on a daily basis, in ways that seem insignificant only because I feel entitled to his gifts. Or maybe I'm afraid that if I thank God for them, He'll pull them away. Maybe trusting Him enough to not merely read the words of Psalm 95:2, but to actually do what they say, could turn my pride into humility, could turn my face to the light, could turn my sour expression into one of hobbit-like delight.