Give thanks, for He is good

Psalm 136:1 - "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His love endures forever.

It's the week of giving thanks, and this verse gives us the important who and why of gratitude.

What's the object of our gratitude? Who do we express it to? I know I'm thankful for many things, like my family, my job, and my health. Yet I have very little to do with the life circumstances that enabled me to have those gifts. God is to thank, and when I thank God, I acknowledge the true source of all good things.

That brings us to why we thank God. Acknowledging that God is good may be harder than when we were children. Many of us have been through life, which means we've seen evidence that God may not be good. Yet to say God is still good––even through pain, suffering, evil, and death––we're admitting that ultimately good will win, and that's only possible if there's a God to win it.

Last, we give thanks to God because his love endures forever. Many of us wonder how God could love certain people. People who spew hate, inflict pain, and wage war. Many of us wonder how God could keep loving someone like us, someone who's screwed it up time and time again. But if God's love endures forever, it means even the worst of us has a chance to be redeemed. It means there's absolutely, positively nothing we can do to keep His love from enduring.

That's something to be thankful for. The magic happens when we express it to Him, and form the connection we so desperately need and He so desperately wants.