1123   Thank you, Lord (Psalm 107:1-9)

1 . A saint is one who expresses and confesses, "Thank you, Lord."

Alright, so can we just talk about how little time is left in 2025? It's flying by. And I really think the best way to look back and finish this year strong is to end it with a heart of gratitude. That’s why I keep coming back to this simple phrase: "Thank you, Lord."

Now, sure, we can say thanks quietly in our heads. But there’s something special about actually saying it out loud. Someone might hear me and think, "Oh, she says that so much, it's just a habit." And you know what? They're right. It is a habit. But that’s not a bad thing! It means I'm wired to choose thanks over complaining, no matter what’s happening.

Let's be real—if you go looking for things to complain about, you’ll find a never-ending list. There's always something that's not quite right. But if you look for reasons to be thankful? You’ll find just as many.

It’s like what Pastor Spurgeon said: You thank God for a candle, and He gives you an electric light. You thank Him for the electric light, and He gives you moonlight. You thank Him for the moonlight, and He gives you sunlight. You thank Him for the sun—He gives you heaven itself. Gratitude is really about training our eyes to see God’s grace in the everyday.

So even if people think it’s just a reflex, I want "Thank you, Lord" to be the constant words on my lips. What starts as an unconscious habit can become our most genuine confession.

So let’s check ourselves today. What words are we constantly using? Are they filled with thanks? Or not so much? Let’s not hold back our gratitude. Let's be the kind of people—the saints—who are always quick to say, "Thank you, Lord."

2 . The Lord is good, and His lovingkindness is everlasting.

You know, usually, we say "thank you" when we have a specific reason, right? When things go our way. And honestly, we Christians are the same a lot of the time. We don't often give thanks for no reason.

But here's the thing about people of faith—we can learn to give thanks just by thinking about who God is. It's not only when He fixes a problem or answers a prayer. We can give thanks simply because He is God.

That’s what today’s Psalm is all about: "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His faithful love endures forever." The more you get to know the Lord, the deeper your thanks becomes.

God is good. Seriously, He is good. And His love? It lasts forever.

Now, we might all have different feelings about God. But through all of that, one thing is crystal clear: God is good to us. We can’t fully understand Him, but in the end, we can know this—He is a good God. My good God.

He loves us. I mean, if He didn’t, would He have let Jesus die on the cross to save us? The cross is the ultimate proof of His love.

I heard someone say once that to be truly happy, a person needs at least three people who love them unconditionally. Maybe you find them in family, a spouse, or friends. But the truth is, a lot of people don’t even have that.

But God—God loves us unconditionally. We live inside the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are loved. We are His beloved.

We really feel God’s love in our own personal experiences. Back in the early 2000s, there was this worship song by Tommy Walker, "He Knows My Name." The lyrics just hit me:

He knows my name,
He knows my every thought,
He sees each tear that falls,
and hears me when I call.

It goes on to say He is my Father, I am His—that from the very beginning, my life was in His hands. My life wasn’t some accident He stumbled upon later. No, from the start, I was held by Him.

That song helped so many people, including me, and a lot of young people at the time, really encounter the Lord in a deeper way. The more we realize we’re living inside God’s goodness—that we’re recipients of this never-ending love—the more we can’t help but thank and worship Him.

So that’s who we are. We’re the ones who, because of who God is and how He loves, can’t help but confess and worship, saying, "Thank you, Lord. You are good, and Your lovingkindness lasts forever."

3. Gratitude deepens through life's experiences.

You know, sometimes you hear a phrase from the Bible your whole life, but it doesn’t really hit you until you go through something hard.

Take the idea of a single day—for most of us, it’s part of our usual routine. But for someone facing a serious illness, the meaning of a single day is completely transformed.

Psalm 107 was written from a place like that. It came out of Israel’s experience in exile—their "wilderness"—and their return to Jerusalem. You can see in verses 2 and 3, it’s a praise song born from overwhelming gratitude after immense suffering. It’s a thanksgiving psalm that was forged in the wilderness.

And don’t we do the same thing? We often call our toughest seasons our "wilderness" times. And when you’re standing in that wilderness, it’s so easy to fall into despair and frustration. It’s a place of thirst, exhaustion, and aching pain.

But here’s the thing about the Bible: so many people of faith had their own "wilderness season." And while the wilderness is the most challenging place, it’s also the place where they encountered God. In the middle of pain and loneliness, they sought Him earnestly… and they met Him there. A lot of the Psalms we love are confessions of praise to the God they met right in the middle of the wilderness.

So, just because we’re walking through a wilderness right now doesn’t mean we can’t offer thanks, praise, or worship. In fact, it’s often there that we can offer deeper thanks and prayer. We can meet God more profoundly in that place. And God, with His help and guidance, will see us through until that season, too, has passed.

Finally, He brings us to a place where we can offer that deep, heartfelt, "Thank you, Lord." That kind of gratitude is the real thing—born from deeply experiencing God.

So if you’re in a wilderness time right now, as saints, let’s not despair or be discouraged. Let’s live relying on the Lord through trust and thanksgiving.

4. Blessed are those who continually long for and seek the Lord.

As we live out this year, I want to become a person who says, "Thank you, Lord." Even if it doesn’t flow naturally from the heart just yet, I want to practice it, meditate on it, and consciously speak it out in each and every moment.

"Thank you, Lord" is a holy habit—it fits a saint perfectly, and it becomes an act of faith. Speaking is faith. We often live according to what we say. Gratitude works the same way; we can be thankful because we believe and hope accordingly.

The Psalm says, "For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things" (verse 9). When we respond and press on with the faith to say "Thank you, Lord" in every good moment and every difficult situation, the Lord will hold us fast by His grace.

Let’s become victorious saints of faith, living in this belief.