Among the rarest of spiritual commodities are praise and thanksgiving.  As such they are among the most precious spiritual qualities.  Show me a person whose heart is filled with praise and thanksgiving, and I will show you a person whose heart is fixed on the Lord.

            I have no doubt that Enoch, for example, was a man whose life was characterized by praise and thankfulness since he “walked with God.”  I have no doubt that Noah, when he “builded an altar unto the Lord . . . and offered burnt-offerings on the altar” after leaving the ark, thanked and praised the Lord.  Nor do I doubt that Abraham’s life was filled with praise and thanksgiving.   But it is instructive to note that some 2300 years of human history (see:  Gen. 29:35) elapse before the word praise is recorded as being used (and an additional 700 years [see:  II Sam. 22:50] elapse before the word thanks is mentioned in relation to man’s response to God).

            The first mention of the former word is used by Jacob’s wife, Leah.  When she conceived her first son, Reuben, perhaps she was thankful.  She did acknowledge that the child was a blessing from God, but her attention seemed fixed upon herself and her unpleasant circumstances rather than upon the Lord:  “Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me” (Gen. 29:32).  When the Lord graciously gave her a second son, Simeon, her attitude appeared little changed:  “Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also” (v. 33).  She again gave a nod to the Lord’s goodness to her, but true praise and thanksgiving seem to be smothered by the sense of injustice she felt for Jacob’s attitude toward her.  When the Lord gave her yet a third son, Levi, she failed even to acknowledge the Lord’s bounty to her, so consumed was she with herself and her perceived plight:  “Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons” (v. 34).  Finally, when she had given birth to a fourth son, Judah, “she said, Now will I praise the Lord” (v. 35).

            The account provides scant details.  So I must not be unduly hard on Leah.  But what is recorded should be sufficient to provoke self-examination:  How many of the blessings of the Lord do I shrug off, take for granted, and fail to appreciate?  After all, the Word pronounces that the Lord “daily loadeth us with benefits” (Psa. 68:19).  Given such bounty, should not my heart be filled with thanksgiving and my lips with praise to the Lord?  How quick we may be to condemn Israel during their wilderness wanderings for murmuring about the manna they received.  Yet who among us have been the recipients of much more variety and abundance than that and yet have found ourselves murmuring and complaining about our lot?

            We may not have the temerity to blame God directly for the circumstances that displease us; nevertheless, our lack of thankfulness speaks volumes.  When the Word of God exhorts us both to “Rejoice evermore [“always”]” and “In every thing give thanks:  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thes. 5:16, 18), it is instructing us not only that we must do it if we are going to obey and thus please our Savior but also that we have ample reason to do so.  It is not our circumstances, but our hearts that extinguish praise and thankfulness.  Must we, like Leah, have four sons before we find God worthy of praise and His gifts worthy our thanks?  Is there not cause to thank Him for the first son?  Is there not reason to thank Him for the barrenness?  All that He withholds as well as all that He gives He does with infinite wisdom and perfect love.  Whatever our circumstances, believers have reason to praise and thank God today.