7 Things We Forget to Be Thankful For

We all have difficult days in this fallen world. When we wake up to face a new day, we may struggle with anger, frustration, regrets, and discouragement. We can be burdened by all the challenges and failures of yesterday. But one of the most incredible blessings that we too often forget is the daily reset button that God gives us. Every single day, God gives us an opportunity for a new beginning, so we can experience grace and mercy, learn and grow, and reconcile with God and other people. Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Every morning that we wake up is another valuable day to live that God has blessed us with. We can use the fresh opportunity of a new day to move beyond our past and struggles with God’s help. God is always willing to forgive our sins, heal our pain, and teach us how to make the best choices as we move into a new day. We should thank God every morning for the fresh start he gives us and live with the confidence that God will give us another new beginning tomorrow.

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We can feel unseen, unheard, and misunderstood, even when we’re surrounded by people. But thankfully, we’re never truly alone. God promises to personally sustain us with his own presence. Joshua 1:9 encourages us to: “… Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Through regular spiritual practices like prayer, we can notice the wonderful reality of God’s constant presence with us. God is always present with us, through his Holy Spirit, who is active in the world and lives inside believers.

As 1 Corinthians 3:16 says: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” Hebrews 13:5 also assures us of God’s constant companionship: “… God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” This promise is a valuable gift that can give us confidence from knowing that our Creator is personally and permanently committed to walking through our lives with us.

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When we pray, we often have a very specific outcome in mind, and when our prayer isn’t answered in the way or on the timetable we’d hoped for, we sometimes slip into disappointment or even doubt. We may even wonder if prayer really works. But that’s because we forget to be thankful for God’s perfect, all-knowing perspective, which is infinitely greater than our own. A prayer request that seems like a necessity to us might be a detour from God’s best path for our lives, or it might be asking for a blessing before we’re spiritually ready to receive it or use it well. The hidden miracle when God answers with “no” or “wait” is the protection it offers from things that could harm us or draw us away from God, without us realizing that.

We thank God for the things we get, but we often neglect to thank God for the things he wisely withholds. Learning to trust God’s wisdom is an important lifelong lesson for us. We need to recognize that God’s plans for our good are better than the plans we have for ourselves. James 1:17 reminds us that God is the source of all that’s truly good: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We can be thankful that every “no” or “wait” is for good reasons that our loving God knows, and that he wants what’s truly best for us.

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We live in a fallen world where many people are searching for meaning and hope. God graciously tells us in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” We tend to forget what a significant blessing it is for God to reveal spiritual truth to us. The ability to read the Bible and understand the truth of who God is, what Jesus has done for us, and what the Holy Spirit accomplishes is an awe-inspiring gift. The quiet miracle we can overlook is that God has allowed our human minds to see and understand the mystery of spiritual truth.

While we always have more to learn about God, we should be thankful for the fact that God has taught us enough about himself for us to have eternal relationships with him. We can easily become complacent about this, and that can lead us to treat the Bible like a textbook instead of like it really is – living sacred words that constantly show us more about God and ourselves. that illuminates our path. Our gratitude that God lets us discover spiritual truth should fuel our lifelong learning, driving us to constantly seek God more.

Jesus, in Matthew 11:25, thanked God for choosing to reveal truth to those who are really seeking God with pure motives: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.” We should thank God that he chose to reveal his saving truth to us, making us able to truly know him and experience his complete and unconditional love for us.

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While we do often thank God for our immediate family and close friends, we often forget to appreciate the full spectrum of people God uses to bless us. This includes our coworkers, our children’s teachers and coaches, the people who work in our community’s stores, and everyone we see on a regular basis. This even includes the difficult people in our lives, such as a demanding neighbor who teaches us patience or a difficult family member who helps us understand the importance of forgiveness.

God orchestrates many people’s lives to intersect with ours for our spiritual good. Every single person in our circle is there for a good purpose and can help us learn to love better. Nothing is more important to learn, because God is love at his core, and Jesus says in Matthew 22:37-40 that loving God and loving other people should be our top priorities. In Philippians 1:3, the apostle Paul gives thanks for the people in his community: “I thank my God every time I remember you.” We need to remember to thank God not just for our close relationships, but for every other person who God has placed in our lives regularly. 

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How often do we stop to thank God for forgiving us for our sins? In this fallen world, we sin a lot more than we’d like to. It’s an incredible blessing that we can always confess, repent, and receive God’s forgiveness. We often forget the heavy weight of guilt and separation from God that was lifted from us through Jesus’ sacrifice. When we think about the countless times we’ve sinned – by speaking unkind words, acting in selfish ways, and more – we can quickly realize that we’ve accumulated such a high spiritual debt that there’s no way we can pay it off ourselves. Jesus has cancelled the entire debt, completely.

We can live with peace and confidence because we know for sure every single day that God gives us grace. We should thank God that we never have to worry about being condemned if we’re in relationships with Jesus. Romans 8:1-2 assures us: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” We are completely free from the judgment we deserve, and that freedom is a gift we should never stop being thankful for. 

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This one could be the hardest to offer thanks for. When we’re in the middle of dealing with a challenge – like a financial struggle, a health crisis, or a family conflict – it can also be challenging to have an attitude of gratitude. Yet, the Bible teaches us that God uses our challenges to teach us valuable spiritual lessons. James 1:2-4 points out: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

As we go through challenges, we can build stronger character and learn new ways of relying on God to help us. We must remember to be thankful for what God teaches us through our challenges – not for the challenges themselves, or for the pain (which doesn’t come from God) – but for all the ways that God brings good out of the bad circumstances we go through in this fallen world. God never wastes any of our experiences. We can trust God to always teach us something valuable from our challenges as he keeps his promise in Romans 8:28: “… that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

In conclusion, God is constantly blessing us. When we notice more than just the blessings we usually thank God for, we can see that God is actually giving us much more than we’ve realized in the past. We may take some of those blessings for granted, or even realize that some things we thought of as burdens are actually blessings in disguise. So, let’s pay closer attention to what God gives us and look forward to finding more blessings to enjoy and thank him for!

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