The blessing of thanksgiving

We give thanks to you,God;

We give thanks; your name is near. Psalm 75:1

 

Read 2 Thessalonians 2:13—17

The nature of thanksgiving assures me, every time I do it, that I am highly privileged. There is something I can put a name to that I give thanks for. So I’m already counting myself among the blessed of God. And I can’t know blessing without feeling privileged. I’ve been named myself, noticed, and gifted by God. Not only can I name specific gifts to thank God for, even more, I myself am one of those gifts. I myself am a grace, along with my brothers and sisters. I must thank God for myself. God has chosen me! In that choice, now that I am God’s child, and loved, I can see that I have become a kind of promise to others of what they, too, can become. I’m called one of the first-fruits. So when I look at those around me, the Lord is training me to look with eyes of expectation. They may have no inkling, but, if they will hear what I have been privileged to hear, they can become as I am, the fruit of the work of God. Of his work in Christ. And the comfort of the Spirit.

 

Father God, tonight I give thanks that I can give thanks! You have set up life in such a way that to live in it at all truly I must be blessed. I must be filled with expectation. I must be expectant in you, expectant for myself, and expectant for others. I pray for those who do not know you yet. You teach me about myself as I pray for them. You teach me to see myself as bearing the promise that will renew them. To know myself as a first-fruit. As the beginning of harvest. As the beginning of a thanksgiving that will spread to others. This night I thank you that I can thank you.