A Thank Offering

November 6, 2022

Psalm 116:17 “I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord.”

In this scripture, David is thanking God for delivering him and rescuing him after he had sinned. Even though David was weak, depressed, his body sick with guilt and grief-stricken, he shares that the Lord stuck by him. He always will. God always will! He doesn’t leave when the ship starts to go down, He doesn’t retreat when the enemy increases strength! 

Being thankful is easy when things are going well, isn’t it? You can usually think of quite a few things to be thankful for when you are happy! When the sun is shining down on us, it’s easy to smile and thank God for the sun. But when those storms start raging all around us, it gets a bit harder to thank Him for storms! 

It’s even harder to thank Him when He’s disciplining us for something and we’ve tried to run and hide from Him. Jonah prayed a very similar prayer in Jonah 2:9 which we’ll talk about later this month. Jonah thanked God while he was still in the belly of the fish!  In fact, it was right after he prayed that prayer, that the fish spit him out near Nineveh.

Both David and Jonah, and many others in the Bible, learned lessons the hard way in life. But when they ran, and when we run away from God, we only bring heartache and disaster to ourselves. 

Think about how God has worked in your life. Have you thanked Him for the good in your life?  I should hope so. But have you also thanked Him for the hard times in your life? I should hope so too. Even though it may be hard, it’s a necessary, important part of our walk with God.