The Joy of Gratitude

Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. (Psalm 105:3)

IN WORD    The hearts of those who seek the Lord are often tentative and fretful. Why do we approach God this way? We’re not sure of how we’ll be received. We know He is loving, but we also know He is holy. We know He is near, but we also know He is utterly transcendent, completely different from what we can imagine. We know that He is light, but we also know that “clouds and thick darkness surround him” (Psalm 97:2).

Everyone who ever got a glimpse of Him really couldn’t explain it to others very well. The mystery is too great. So we sometimes seek God with a little fear or a little pessimism. We’re not sure what we’ll find on the other side of the mystery.

Psalm 105 gives us other instructions. Yes, He’s mysterious, shrouded in transcendence, incomprehensible in His holiness. But we can still approach Him with joy. We can rejoice because we know that everything He does is good. It may be hard and it may be confusing, but it will be good. God never spurns those who approach Him with an elementary understanding of who He is.

How does this help us? Our natural tendency, like Adam and Eve, is to hide from God. We don’t necessarily sit behind bushes hoping He won’t discover us, but mentally we’re not entirely open to Him. We dress up our prayers to sound right to His ears, we dress up our deeds to appear worthy before Him, and we dress up our worship to appeal to His glory.

IN DEED     In doing so, we sometimes hide things. We don’t come to Him boldly, as the writer of Hebrews encourages us to do (Hebrews 4:16). We’re spiritual actors when we don’t need to be. We underestimate His mercies. We’re not quite sure who He is.

Gratitude reminds us never to underestimate Him. It reminds us of what He has done, what He has forgiven, and what He has promised. It acknowledges who He is. And it sends us into His presence with joy.

“The best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.”—Mother Teresa

Additional Reading: Psalm 105:1-7; Hebrews 4:16