He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God. (Psalm 50:23)

Having blogged just yesterday about the importance of giving thanks to God, I certainly did not go to bed last night intending to do so again today. But then, while reading Scripture this morning, I came across Psalm 50. It just so happens that one of the main themes of this particular psalm seems to be that though the wicked can and (for various reasons) sometimes do engage in many of worship rituals prescribed by the temple cultus, only those who are truly consecrated to God will sacrifice thank offerings to him. Thus, the act of giving thanks is on my mind once again.

The point I want to make today is that while it’s true that there was a ritual, material, geographical aspect to the manner in which the ancient Hebrews would sacrifice a thank offering to God (see Leviticus 7:11-15), the New Testament seems to spiritualize the concept, focusing on the act of simply speaking forth words of thanksgiving and praise to the one we acknowledge as Lord (see Hebrews 3:15). Thus, though the Thanksgiving holiday affords us an annual opportunity to sacrifice thank offerings to God, I want to suggest in this blog posting that giving thanks should be a way of life … and for good reason!

This is actually a point I elaborate upon some in my book Christ’s Empowering Presence (Biblica Publishing) scheduled for release in June, 2011. In that work I write: 

            Finally, I want to say a bit more, as promised, about the vital importance of maintaining throughout the day an attitude of real gratitude to God for his many blessings. We’ve already seen that a good number of the classic works on Christian spirituality have emphasized the important relationship between the practice of the presence of God and an ongoing engagement in worship, praise, and thanksgiving. What I want to underscore here is my understanding of how the connection between giving thanks to God and the experience of his presence is not only correlative, but causative as well. We all know how easy it is to worship and give thanks during those wonderful moments when Christ’s presence is palpably evident to us (see Ephesians 5:18–20). This is what I mean when I say that the presence of God and giving thanks just seem to go together, to correlate.

            But what about those times when the divine presence is not so patently obvious to us—those seasons of spiritual dryness referred to by spiritual life authors such as Thomas à Kempis and Richard Foster? While I heartily endorse what à Kempis, Foster, and others have said about the value of simply and patiently waiting these seasons out, I want to go on to state that my experience has been that during times when a sense of Christ’s nearness has been noticeably absent in my life, the spiritual discipline of giving thanks to God in an intentional, proactive, yet sincere manner has often brought about a fresh season of his existential proximity. In other words, I want to suggest that the act of giving thanks in the face of one’s ambiguous, perhaps even adverse, circumstances can actually cause or facilitate a renewed sense of Christ’s empowering presence.

           In Psalm 50:23 we read, “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.” I’m more than intrigued with the idea that giving thanks in a deliberate, proactive manner can somehow precipitate God’s providential involvement in my life—I’m convinced of it! While I don’t mean for this to be understood as a foolproof formula, it’s because of passages such as Psalm 50:23, and the fact that I’ve personally experienced both the correlative and causative connections between giving thanks and the experience of God’s presence, that one of the grand goals of my life is to become a truly praiseful person—a man whose lifestyle is earmarked by the habit of seeing God in everything that happens, and giving him thanks, sometimes by raw faith, as a result (see also Ephesians 5:19–20; Philippians 4:4–7; 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18). Deep down inside, don’t you want to become a perpetually praiseful person too?

Well, don’t you? We have some really good reasons to take Psalm 50:23 very seriously, Thanksgiving week or not.

Something to think about.