Despite the economy and other troubles that you and I face, we can find great comfort in giving thanks to God. I fully realize that giving thanks can be very difficult at times, but I have learned, let us say, the hard way, it is really good to give thanks.

Satan would have us blame any and all difficult circumstances on God. However, he is really partly to be blamed. But, by contrast, we read in the Holy Bible that God is good. In Him there is no impurity, injustice, evil, or any other shortcoming common among us.

Indeed, oftentimes we bring trouble upon ourselves by wandering away from God and doing thing the way we see fit – and not His way. Somewhere along the line we all violate the two supreme laws that Christ noted as the crystallization of the law of of God: to love God with our entire being, and to love our neighbor as we would love ourselves.

When we come short of His commandments, then we have sinned. And while God is righteous in all that He is and does, and He would remain righteous to destroy us for any shortcoming from His law, He extends his gracious mercy to us.

Situations around us, and even our own self, can make us sour and cause us to wonder what we have to be thankful about. Yet, we can find the sweetness of His wonderful comfort if we focus upon His goodness and mercy.

In Psalms 106, 107, 118 and 136, we find this recurring sentence: “O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” This thought that occurs five times (we find it twice in Psalm 118), calls upon us to give thanks to God for two specific reasons – because of His goodness and His enduring mercy.

While people and situations around us might not be good at all, we can purposely rejoice in the fact that God is good. And while we might have a tendency to grumble as to why does God seemingly permit evil and injustice to flourish, we need to keep in mind He desires to be merciful to all sinners, including us. He constantly tries to bring the lost to Him so that they might commit their life to Him, forsake their sin, be blessed and be a blessing.

No matter how bad things become, we can always thank God that He remains good, and very merciful to all.