Life moves so fast at times that it is easy to forget to give thanks to God for all that we have. It is also difficult at times to vocalise what we want to say to him. We may want to express our thanks to God for His creation and for all the creatures we see. We may want to thank God for His constant and unfailing love, which often shores us up when times are difficult. Or we may just want to thank him for our day-to-day enjoyment of life.
That’s where a good hymn can help us to do what we need to do – give thanks. There are so many hymns whose words contain thankful praises, often making our choice difficult. Sadly, we often focus on the hymns because of their tune, rather than the beautiful words many of our hymns contain. Today’s hymn is an example of this.
‘Give thanks with a grateful heart’, written by Henry Smith is one of my favourites and unlike other hymns of thanks it begins with a clear instruction – to give thanks.
So, let’s look closer at how it came about.
The hymn was written by Henry Smith, who is an American Christian Worship writer born in 1952. He wrote the words of this hymn in 1978, after leaving university and despite living with a degenerative condition that has affected his sight permanently, he didn’t let this stop him writing. The hymn is sung in F major with an irregular meter. This is the only published hymn that Smith has had, although he has written many songs. After writing it Smith often sang it at his local church, and it was on one of these occasions that a United States Military Officer heard him perform it, liked it and then went on to take it to Europe, and amazingly its popularity spread. Initially Smith did not get recognition as the author, as in 1986 it was published accredited to another singer-songwriter initially.
The hymn directly links with verses in Ephesians – “As you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:19-20.
The hymn is simplistic, repetitive and has words that are easily remembered. It takes us right back to what is important in life. The hymn is sung to one of those tunes that once in your head is hard to forget. It’s a song and a prayer and can be used as such.
“Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One; give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son”.
These words give us a palpable nudge, reminding us to give our genuine thanks from the heart, and not to forget who to thank when things are going right for us – God and reminds us that it is God who gave us everything.
“And now let the weak say, ‘I am strong’, let the poor say, I am rich’, because of what the Lord has done for us;”
We are reminded that when we give thanks, we should not forget others, particularly those who are least able to benefit from all God has made available, highlighting inequality of access, particularly those on the fringes of society. It’s a call to action. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if we didn’t have poverty, and the world’s wealth was evenly distributed to all. Now that would really be something to thank God for!
So, no matter what you are doing and how busy you are, take time out to rejoice and give thanks with a loud AMEN!
Kathy Shaw