Gratitude: A Gateway to God’s Will
By Justin Pratt, Clear Springs Baptist Church Senior Pastor
Gratitude is one of the rarest forms of faith. Anyone can praise God when life feels full, but it takes a deeply trusting heart to lift thanks when life feels empty. Real gratitude was never intended to be built on what we hold, but rather anchored in Who holds us. It’s easy to give thanks when prayers are answered, doors swing open, and blessings are coming our way, but mature faith learns to whisper “thank You” even in the waiting room of silence. True gratitude says, “God, I may not understand this season, but I trust that You are good in it.” When we thank Him not just for the blessings but despite the burdens, we are proclaiming our confidence that He wastes nothing. The most grateful souls are not those who have seen the most miracles, but those who have learned that every breath, every sunrise, and every unseen mercy is proof that God is still faithful.
When the Apostle Paul, inspired by God’s Spirit, wrote, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,” it was never intended to be a polite suggestion for happy Christians; it was a revealing secret for steadfast believers. It’s essential to remember in this season of thanksgiving that the will of God is not only in the big decisions of life, but also in the daily disposition of the heart. Gratitude is the Lord’s way of realigning our perspectives from all that we see happening around us, to intentionally seeing what God is doing inside of us. It’s not just saying ‘thank you’ for what we can see, it’s trusting God for what we can’t.
Giving thanks “in every thing” doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to be excited or grateful for all the things that happen in our lives, but that we learn to thank Him through everything that happens. It’s not an expectation on the part of anyone to be thankful when you lose someone you love or has just been given a death sentence from a cancer diagnosis. No one expects the grieving man or woman whose spouse just walked away to express gratitude for that. Thankfulness is probably the last thing that comes to mind when you just learned that one of your children made a bad decision that landed them in jail for a few nights. The giving of thanks in everything is a defiant act of faith that says, “My situation may not be good, but my God still is.” Thankfulness in the storms of life becomes our declaration that the Lord remains sovereign and worthy when nothing else makes sense. It was this truth that allowed Job to declare, “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” in the absolute hardest season of his life.
Never forget that true gratitude reaches deeper than just the appreciation for the blessings that we hold in our hands; it’s the quiet confidence that even the unseen, the unanswered, and the uncomfortable are being used by the hand of a faithful God. Gratitude, then, is not reactionary; it’s revolutionary. It shifts our focus from what’s missing to who’s present. When we thank God in all things, not just for all things, we declare that His goodness outweighs our circumstances.
The mature believer doesn’t view the will of God as a mystery to be solved, but a posture to be lived. When our lives stay thankful, even in hardship and adversity, according to the Bible, we are walking in the center of His will. Gratitude is the turning point of the heart where our fears can be transformed into faith, our worry becomes worship, and we trust the hand of God even when we cannot trace it. Thanksgiving is the place where we refocus on the importance of loving Jesus and following God, not for what He gives, but for who He is.
