Day 268 - Thinking & Thanks

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In our first two presentation on thanks, we talked about the need to recognize and to confess our thanks. There is so much we have to be thankful for. Even in the bad times, thanks is possible. It is when we are thankful in the challenging times that I believe makes the good times that much more powerful in our lives. 

As I have said in past presentations, I came to a place where giving thanks was losing its meaning in my life. I just didn't know what the words "thank you" meant anymore. Habitually saying those words just didn't make any sense. I felt like God wanted me to get what these words meant so that their power could be more of what I experienced living as the victor He has called out for me in this life. 

I stated in earlier podcasts, I found that "thanks" had a meaning that included words like confession and recognition. Today, we are going to take a look at a third nuance to the word "thanks" that I found as I studied this interesting word. Forgive me for the difficulty you might have understanding my wording today. We are going to cover a meaning of the word thanks that can be summed up by a word that sounds very much like thanks. An important element of the word "thanks" comes as we take a look at the topic of how we "think." These words sound so similar that you might have to listen closely to tell which one I'm saying as we go through our presentation today. Alright, let's get started.

I mentioned in the Confession podcast that we are obligated to give thanks. We owe God something that we can never repay. Even in the good times and in the bad, the grace God has given us should be just as evident. It is when we think God's grace means we get a good life now, that we begin to lose the power of thanksgiving in our lives. Because grace is so much more than just a good live right now, even when times are bad, we can thank Him. There’s a power in recognizing that fact. 

The origins of the world Thanks reinforces this notion of obligation. The French word for thanks is “merci”. Literally translated this word means “mercy.” In other words when a french person says “merci” they are saying thanks for not giving me what I really deserve. Now, that’s a perspective on thanks that I believe we have missed in our life. 

I don’t care how bad your life is at the moment, you actually deserve a whole lot worse in the eyes of a perfect and perfectly unapproachable God. Even the slightest misstep on our parts is proof enough of the need for our total annihilation. Yes, God loves us. He pours out on us the power of relationship and promises something better no matter how bad or how good our lives are right this moment. That’s mercy if I have ever heard it. I have a lot to be thankful for. I deserve a whole lot more badness, even when bad times are in my life. That's mercy. For that mercy, I want to stop and simply say, "Thank you God!"

That thought is emphasized in today Bible reading. Short as this verse is, it is packed with the truth and the power of thanksgiving. 

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36 (NIV)

Knowing that the French word for thanks is all about mercy, this verse takes on a whole new meaning when we replace mercy in our reading with thanks. When we make this substitution, our reading goes like this. Be thankful, just as your Father is thankful. 

What's God thankful for? He's thankful for you and for me. He is thankful for the relationship we have with Him, when we let Him in. He is thankful for the love and praise and honor and worship we show Him, particularly when times are bad in our lives. He is thankful for the choice we make to love Him in spite of what this world does to try and get us to do otherwise. Our verse makes it abundantly clear, that just as God is thankful for the ability to relate to us, we are to be thankful for our relations, both vertical and horizontal. 

Where the origins of the word "thanks" has a lot to do with obligation, it also has a focus on the notion of thinking of the other person. When a person gives you a gift, it is a symbol that they have thought of you. How many times have you heard that people really love gifts that have an element of thought behind them? That's what people are really conveying when they say thanks for what you have done for them. It is the recognition that someone thought of you that makes thanks have the power it can in our lives. 

We are wired to want to be thought of. The notion that someone would take time of out their day to actually turn their attention to us is something that touches us all in a deep way. When we say Thank You to a person who gave us a gift, we are actually showing our appreciation for the fact that that person thought of us in the first place. 

I think that’s why thanking God all the time is such a powerful thing to do. It is actually showing God how much we appreciate the fact that He thinks of us constantly. Using thanks as a way of relating to this God also puts us in a place where we are thinking more of who God is in our lives on a moment by moment basis. Thanks can actually get our eyes off our problems and enable us to focus on someone who is the answer to all our problems. 

One more element of where the word Thanks came from in our language. Thanking someone is really saying, “I am thinking of you because of all you have done for me.” Isn’t that the epitome of a relationship with God? God has done so much for you and for me. We will never be able to repay all that He has done for us. By saying Thanks, we are telling God we are thinking of Him because we recognize all that He has done for us. That’s why Thanks is so important and powerful - It makes it possible for us to remember who we are and who this God is in our lives. 

We have a lot to be thankful for. The very fact that God would even think of us, as insignificant was we are when compared to His bigness, is proof enough of our need to give thanks. Take time today to thank God no matter what is going on in your life. He thinks of you all the time. He knows what you are going through. He feels your pain in ways this well worn statement fails to communicate fully. Thank Him for thinking of you. Thank Him for thinking you are the victor He sees you to be. Thank Him for the mercy He is showing you right now. Thank Him for letting you be called His Child and live in the power of what that will be in all you do today.