That’s what I feel like saying today. COVID-19 sure is making a mess of things. If I’m honest I can more quickly come up with a list of things to complain about than things to be grateful for. And if I’m really honest, I just wanna wallow in that for a bit. And if I’m really, really honest, I don’t care if that makes anyone think less of me. And yet on an even deeper level if I’m really, really, really honest I know none of that is healthy.
Thankfully the Spirit of God within me brings to mind things like this:
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind.
(Psalm 107:8)
This verse becomes a refrain repeated a total of five times throughout this Psalm. It serves as a sort of chorus following reflections on various hardships God’s people had endured: danger of death at the hands of enemies, wandering in wastelands hungry and thirsty, chained up in dark prisons, illness, raging storms at sea…
And on and on.
In telling bits and pieces of the story of God’s people, the Psalmist invites us to insert our own stories into that grand narrative. To see the way that God turned things around in the past is the same way he can turn things around in the future. He loves a good plot twist. The Psalmist invites us to tell our own uncomfortable stories with the refrain of “thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.” Today there are more reasons than usual for despair, but God’s deeds are still wonderful.
Gratitude, if not always our natural reflex, is a powerful remedy to despair. What’s one thing you are grateful for today?
