Remember that God in the past will just be as good in your future. Faith reminds you to be grateful and have every reason to trust God for your future.
SHAUNA: This is Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada Sharing Hope with a timeless lesson about gratitude.
JONI: The other day I was showing a friend a photo album from my childhood days. And when I looked at the photos from our farm, and going camping, hiking in the woods, it made me so grateful for such good parents. I felt so thankful that I experienced the childhood that I did. At the time, hiking was tiring, and camping meant mosquitoes and putting up the tent; being on the farm meant bringing in the hay and feeding the sheep. But now, looking back, I can hardly recall the difficult or even painful parts of my childhood. I guess when you know the Lord, our memories become very selective, his grace covers all the disappointments and, in turn, makes much of every pleasant experience we may have enjoyed as a child. Oh, I'm so grateful – so very grateful – for my parents and the way they raised me and my sisters.
And when you think about it, that’s what gratitude does. Gratitude looks back on all the things God has done in your life, and it recalls how good God has been through every trial and in every disappointment. It’s why Psalm 105 tells us again and again to remember the wonders that God has done. Because it is through remembering that we gain a grateful heart. But please don’t think that gratitude does its best work looking back in the past. No. When it comes to being thankful for things God has done in the past, gratitude turns right around and goes to work on the future. It helps you be hopeful and even happy about the days ahead. How does that happen? Well, gratitude informs your faith, reminding you that you have every reason to trust God for the future.
It’s why one of the most forward-looking verses I know is in 1 Samuel 7:12. The Israelites had just won a great victory over the Philistines. They had seen God do marvelous wonders, and He looked so good – God looked so very good – in their eyes. They were so grateful, so thrilled over what the Lord had done. And so, verse 12 says, “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shem. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’” Wow! I love that! To me, that stone memorial marked a turning point for their gratitude. Yes, they could celebrate “Thus far, God has helped us.” But their gratitude for that past victory was then able to inform their faith of how God would help them be victorious in the future!
And in the same way, my wheelchair is kind of a stone memorial. I look back and am so grateful to see how the Lord came through time and again for me in my disability. And that informs, it speaks into my faith about my future in this wheelchair. Friend, let your gratitude for things past inform your hopeful outlook on the future.
SHAUNA: Listening friend, who in your life needs to be reminded that if God was good in the past, then boy, he’s going to be just as good in the future? Ask God to show you who needs this encouraging word today, and then send them to joniradio.org where they’ll find this program, and all of Joni’s wisdom and encouragement. Remember, that’s joniradio.org. And gratitude looks back on the past to thank God; then it strengthens your faith to face your future with confidence. And, oh my goodness, that is worth remembering! Onward and upward, friend, in Jesus’s Name!
© Joni and Friends