These are the familiar words of a meal prayer many of us use, especially at Thanksgiving. But they can also be used for prayer at any time. They are simply the words of Scripture given to us to speak, pray, and meditate upon.

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.” The Thanksgiving holiday is not the only day to be thankful for the blessings we receive from our “good” God. This Psalm and others like it were written to help us direct our thanks to God at all times.

what we are thankful for.

Every confirmation student learns how the Small Catechism helps us focus in on the things for which we can be thankful. When we learn the explanation of the Apostle’s Creed, particularly the First Article, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” there is a long list of things for which we can be thankful:

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.   

finding thanks in turmoil.

However, living in the midst of a pandemic, political turmoil, and a moral revolution can make it difficult to give thanks readily. It can make us question the goodness of God. In my own frailty and weakness, I know I have done that a time or two. When I was struck with COVID during the month of September, I had my moments there, too. But I am thankful that God can always handles my moments of doubt and questioning—and yours, too!

In September, I had a moderate case of COVID that was exacerbated by my Lyme disease. I never had any respiratory distress, but for 10 days, I was afflicted by fever, chills, intense body aches, and extreme fatigue—much of which mirrors my Lyme disease.

The unpleasantness of it all was amplified as I quarantined in my own home—lonely and missing human contact. (My youngest daughter had to ask if she could have a hug from daddy on her sixth birthday, which fell during my illness.) Add to that the well-meaning but alarmist concerns of my doctor who had me checking my pulse/oxygen levels every 30 minutes, and you can imagine the overall unrest, anxiety, and affliction my condition brought. There were many long nights of sleeplessness combined with my perpetual cries of the Kyrie. 

Thanks be to God! I am now fully recovered. And with the Psalmist, I indeed “give thanks to the Lord for he is good, and his mercy endures forever.” Yet I am fully aware of those who have not or did not receive such recovery. The unfairness of this fallen, pestilence-filled world can certainly make us question that “goodness” of God.  It makes us examine what we call good and how we define good.

the goodness of God.

If you are a Chronicles of Narnia fan, it’s like when the child Lucy finds out that the great lion, Aslan, is not a tame lion. Mr. Beaver tells her he’s not safe but is nonetheless entirely good. So it is with God. It seems like a contradiction, but only until we realize that our expectations of God may not have been informed by the full counsel of Scripture and were instead influenced by a fanciful view of God.   

How do we make sense of all this? How do we make sense of a God who is good and yet allows evil and suffering? Because suffering is not simply being in pain or being sympathetic to those who are in pain. It goes much deeper.

Suffering is a complaint, a lament about the wrongness of our pain. Suffering is the shout of, “No! This isn’t right!” Yet it isn’t a cry into the void. For Christians, it is a shout and cry directly to almighty God—like the Psalmist. By it, we implore He look at these great evils in our lives.

Yet we can only throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Lord—which is captured by the Psalmist when he declares, “his steadfast love endures forever.” Though God is not a tame God according to our definitions, the love of God is utterly safe and eternally secure.

steadfast love for you.

The love of God is unending and steadfast, even when we suffer. In fact, His steadfast love is most readily shown to us through the suffering of His Son—a suffering that God intentionally put Him through. So what you and I might call “good” often isn’t; while what we might call “evil” God can call good. The suffering of His Son Jesus demonstrates this, while at the same time being the very means by which God most clearly reveals His steadfast love to you.

At the core of God’s goodness is the safety and confidence of His steadfast love—which is ironically shown through the suffering of His own Son. Jesus Himself experienced great evil and suffering. In fact, He was crucified on a Friday that we call “good.” Think about that. You and I call the great evil and suffering that God the Father intentionally heaped upon His Son “good.”

But that is the place where God most wants you to know His steadfast love. To know that in your suffering, Jesus has been there ahead of you. You have an intimate connection with Him because when you suffer, you are joined with Him in His suffering for you upon His cross. 

That a “good” God would intentionally make His Son suffer is a contradiction that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem fair, it doesn’t seem right, and it certainly wasn’t safe for Jesus. But Jesus never said anything about the plan of salvation being safe for Him. He knew it wouldn’t be. Yet He willingly went through it because He knew it was good for you and for me, and for every sinner on the face of this earth.

“O, give thanks to the Lord for he is good and his mercy endures forever.”

Giving thanks always,

Pastor Lucas

Rev. Dr. Lucas V. Woodford
President
Minnesota South District, LCMS
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