A Prayer for When You Don’t Feel Thankful
By Kyle Norman
Bible Reading
“In bringing many children to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the author of salvation perfect through suffering.” - Hebrews 2:10
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Are you excited about the upcoming Thanksgiving celebrations? Tables will be filled with Turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Churches everywhere will fill their sanctuaries with signs of God’s bounty. And if your celebrations are anything like mine, you may go around the table, each person voicing why they are thankful. Thanksgiving is about recognizing the good things that God brings into your life. We recognize our blessings and articulate our thanks.
But what happens if you don’t feel like giving thanks? What happens if you are going through a time of loss, grief, or deep suffering? What if, like Job, you feel that everything around you has completely fallen apart, and you are struggling with the apparent absence of God? Do you smile and fake it? Or is thanksgiving completely out of the question? Each year, people struggle with this question. Are you struggling with this question today? If we think that thanksgiving is about noticing our surrounding blessings, then we might think that suffering and loss invalidate it. Worse yet, we may feel that suffering and loss are contrary to the life of faith. So, we judge ourselves because we don’t feel thankful. If we just had more faith, we say, these struggles or losses wouldn’t sting so much.
But here’s the thing about thanksgiving. True thanksgiving, as a spiritual discipline, is not about what happens to us; it’s about who is with us. Hebrews says, “In bringing many children to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the author of salvation perfect through suffering.” Later, the author says, “We do not have a great high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” Jesus joins us in our feelings. After all, he was tempted just as we are, he was bruised and cut just as we have been, and he felt the full weight of rejection, hostility, and the apparent silence of God.
In fact, Jesus was incarnate in human life to such the degree that he spoke the very prayer that is so often on our lips: “My God my god, why have you forsaken me.” Jesus is our redeemer because he is the one who comes to us in our weaknesses. Jesus knows the depth of human need and suffering. We give thanks deeply not because Jesus has removed all the hardships and turmoil from our lives but because he enters them. Even if we don’t recognize him—even if we can’t see him—because of the cross, we can trust that, in some way, he is there. And it’s because that is who God is for us—because that was the expression of God’s redeeming power—that we can recognize the mercy and the grace that surrounds us.
Thanksgiving isn’t about plastering over our raw emotions under the guise of fake positivity; faith doesn’t run on “fake it till you make it.” You are never asked to pretend to be thankful or joyful when you feel the opposite. Jesus knows how you feel. And so true Thanksgiving is about daring to believe that Jesus is with you and then bringing to him the fullness of who you are and how you feel in this moment.
I hope that everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving celebration. And if you can rejoice in grand things, in great things, in blessings that have surrounded you or your family, then I hope that you are able to do that as robustly as you can. But if you find yourself dealing with a loss, or grief, or a deep struggle, such that positive exultations just don’t ring true for you, then I pray you rest in a deeper thanksgiving. I pray that you recognize the truth that the suffering and sympathetic Lord is on your side.
Let’s Pray:
Gracious and Loving Savior,
I want to be thankful. I want to be filled with joy and happiness. I want to radiate light in this world and draw people to the blessings you provide. But Lord, at this moment, I am at a loss. I struggle with a profound and soul-deep sense of suffering, grief, and heartache. In faith I know that you are the protector, the provider, and the healer, but I don’t feel those things in this moment. Lord, I pray for a touch from your hand. I ask that you reach into my life with a whisper of comfort and ease. Give me a vision of your presence, O Lord.
Lord, as I say these things, I thank you that I can say these things. I can bring my burdens to you because you are a God who enters the thick messiness of my life. Even If I don’t see you or feel you, you are with me, and because you are with me, I can unburden my soul to you. And so in some small way, O Lord, I give thanks, not because you surround me with miracles or because my situation of loss and struggle will magically vanish, but I give thanks because I stand not alone. You sympathize with my weakness, you hear my cry, you match my tears with your own. Lord, I pray you help me breath deeply this loving reality. Help me to live in this truth.
I pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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