God’s Gratitude
My dear friend, Will, prays the most wonderful prayers for me over the phone! Today, he prayed for me that I would live in such a way that God would be grateful to me.
I had never thought of it that way before! I wonder why?
I suspect that the answer reveals something in me that is good, but not good enough. I tend to think of gratitude as having its roots in dependence. In a sense, it does. I am dependent upon others, and therefore feel grateful when they come through. Since God is not dependent upon anyone, God cannot be grateful.
But perhaps, a gratitude that is rooted only in a sense of dependence has too shallow a root system. Indeed, many people who are completely dependent on others (or almost so) are steadfastly ungrateful.
On the other hand, what if I think of gratitude as flowing from joy, and not just from a sense of dependence? If that is true, then God can be profoundly grateful. After all, joy is one of the characteristics of God (Psalm 16:11; Nehemiah 8:10; Zephaniah 3:17).
Now that I think about it, God’s gratitude is splashed all over the Bible. In Genesis 1, God sees what he has made and the narrator says that God repeatedly said, “It is good!” That sounds as if God is having a good time, enjoying himself. It also sounds like God is grateful. At the end of Genesis 1, the narrator sums up God’s summary of His creation, “And God saw all that He had made and, behold, it was very good!” Yes!
And even we mortals can take a proper sense of pride when we’ve done a good job on something. My wife is a wonderful cook. Sometimes, I think she is overly self-critical of her efforts, but sometimes, she tastes something and says, “Oh, that’s good!”
In the New Testament, Jesus told a story about a slave-owner who settled accounts with slaves. He had entrusted them with great wealth, and gone away on a journey. When he returned, those who had invested his wealth and gotten a good return on their investment heard these words: “. . . ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master’” (Matthew 25:21).
That sounds like gratitude to me. When you commend someone, you are expressing your gratitude to and for them and for their efforts. Notice too, that this grateful commendation is closely connected with joy—the slave-owner’s joy and that of the slaves as well.
A joyful, grateful God! What an appealing portrait of the Almighty One, the One who needs nothing, but appreciates everything!
Thanks, Will!
DTEB
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