Thanking God When It Hurts

Have you offered God the sacrifice of thanksgiving today?

I recently read Psalm 50 in my morning devotions and that phrase popped up twice in my reading, once in verse 14 and again in the last verse (23). Now I have often reflected on the essential nature of thanksgiving in the life of a believer, but this phrase struck me and prompted further study. The ESV translates verse 14 this way, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.” They also provide a footnote with the alternate rendering, “Make thanksgiving your sacrifice to God.” The New Living Translation adopts that alternate rendering and translates the phrase, “Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God.” Verse 23 maintains that understanding and the ESV translates verse 23, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.”

So how do you offer thanksgiving as a sacrifice? Isn’t a sacrifice supposed to cost you something? If someone gives me $100 for my birthday, I don’t feel like I have to struggle to say, “Thank you.” It certainly doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to give thanks. And that’s why I think the psalmist Asaph is talking about something different than thanking God in the good times. If you read the Psalm (and I would encourage you to do so), you’ll notice that it speaks of God’s judgment on the people of Israel. We read in verses 3-4, “3Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. 4He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people…”

Does that sound like Israel is sipping a cool drink and chilling on the shores of Galilee because life is good? Those verses sound a little scary to me. God “calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people.” I personally wouldn’t like the sound of that. But that’s the context for verses 14 and 23 and this call to make thanksgiving a sacrifice.

The people were sacrificing animals, and there were ritual thanksgiving sacrifices that the people would offer. But God makes clear to them that he didn’t need the animals. He points out he owns all the animals anyway so why would he NEED their animal sacrifices. But he did desire they give him thanks even amid judgment, even when life is not going how we want, even when we may be suffering. The New Testament reinforces this truth with the verse, “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

You see, thanksgiving can feel like a sacrifice when life is a struggle and there are hard lessons the LORD wants to teach us. It’s easy to give thanks when things are going well and the blessings are obvious. And we should give thanks in those circumstances. But when life takes a sudden turn and throws us against the wall, then thanksgiving can be offered as a sacrifice. And I’m not saying we fake it and pretend we are thankful. God has no interest in charades. But he does want us to trust him in the trial and find those blessings we can still thank him for. We offer that thanksgiving as a sacrifice.

Joni Eareckson Tada provided a wonderful illustration of this in a March 17, 2021 blog entry (https://www.joniandfriends.org/a-sacrifice-of-thanksgiving/ ). Imagine two people each give you an embroidery as a gift to say thank you. One friend bought their gift at a craft shop and the second friend hand stitched their embroidery and did so even though she suffered terribly with rheumatoid arthritis. Both embroideries are beautiful, but the handstitched grabs your heart. Her gratitude was given out of suffering. You know it was through pain that she handstitched that gift and presented to you with gratitude.

When life hurts, we can offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. We can dig through the pain and find those blessings we can still thank God for. Not faking it. Not pretending we are thankful for something we are not. But taking the time to search our souls and find those things we are genuinely grateful for and offering them to God. Offering thanksgiving as a sacrifice won’t be easy, but it’s a sacrifice that says, “God, I trust you in the trauma, and I love You even when I don’t understand.”

Thank God in the good times. And in the hard times, offer to God the SACRIFICE of thanksgiving.