Thankfulness for His Mercy

Psalm 130 – “1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! 2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! 3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6 my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. 8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

Being an American, last Thursday, I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family.  It is a wonderful holiday that encourages many people to spend time with their family and reflect on the things that they are thankful for.  It gives people a moment to stop thinking about all the stuff they don’t have and to consider all the things they are already blessed with, whether it be the turkey and mashed potatoes lying in front of them or the cousin sitting right across from them on the table.  Unfortunately, this holiday has quickly lost its value as it becomes more about gorging oneself on food and planning for what sale items to purchase at the Black Friday sale at one’s favorite store the next day, if not that night.  Gratefulness has taken the back seat to consumerism.  I was actually getting quickly sucked into this pattern of thinking, so I was grateful for the few minutes before starting our Thanksgiving lunch, where each one of us at the party said something we were thankful for.  It was nice to hear the thanks for family members, food, and health, but the comments on gratitude for the Lord’s saving grace was few and far between in a family full of Christians.  I will not discount the few who did say thank you for the salvation given to us by Christ and the agreement of all, but it would have been nice to hear that a lot more.

Just going through that exercise made me realize that many of us forget to thank God for His mercy to us.  It is easy to take for granted something that cost us little to nothing but cost our God so much.  We can all remember the times when we were given a toy by our parents, which we enjoyed for a short while, before we tossed it to the back of the toy box for the next new thing.  We tended to do this when we were young, because we did not really understand the value of hard work that had to go into purchasing us that toy.  We discounted it because we didn’t know the price.  This happens often in our spiritual life, especially with God’s mercy.  We tend to forget that God did not have to forgive us for our sins at all.  He had every right to punish us and send us to the hell we deserved, but instead, He willingly gave of His Son to die for us, so that He could show us mercy yet fulfill His role as a just God.  He did this all because of love, all because He wanted to not give us something we did deserve – death.  The Psalmist in Psalm 130 made sure to remind himself of God’s wonderful mercy to him.  When we read the first verse alone, it sounds like the Psalmist is asking for deliverance from the depths, from some type of despair brought on by man, but the further you look into the Psalm, the more you realize the Psalmist was calling on God to show him mercy for his own sin – for the iniquities (vs. 3 and 8) that he himself committed.  He knew that in reality the Lord had no need to forgive Him but because of His grace, mercy, and steadfast love would forgive him for his sin.  He did not just let it go but went on to create this Psalm to remind himself every time he sang it that he had received mercy.

Let us take the time to be thankful during the last parts of this Thanksgiving weekend to show our gratefulness to our loving Heavenly Father for His grace and mercy.  Oh how He loves us!