Hi, thanks for listening to The Point.

This week, we're revisiting some of the most important commentaries from the past year.

From all of us at the Colson Center, Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.

Thanksgiving is about gratitude.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with The Point.

G.K. Chesterton said gratitude was nearly the greatest of all human duties and nearly the most difficult.

It's the greatest because, as Paul wrote to the

church at Corinth, what do we have we did not receive? Truth, tradition, technology, medicine,

democracy, relative peace, these are all things given to us by those who've gone before. And yet,

to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when things are going well. Expressing gratitude

in a year like this, that's much more difficult.

Things, let's say, could have been better, and we mourn for our friends and neighbors who face

sickness, death, financial struggle, and relational fractures throughout this year.

Gratitude in difficult times is what Jonathan Edwards called gracious gratitude.

We give thanks, not just for what God has done for us, not just for what we've received, but for who he is.

This gratitude is relational, not conditional, though our world may shatter, we're secure,

and the one who's made us and who's saved us, and we can never be separated from his love.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm John Stone Street.