Surprising Discovery of Nevertheless-Thanks (2021 Word of the Year)
I’m not done talking about my word of the year. Not yet. Because each year my word deeply embeds, and I do not hold the learning lightly.
It will be weeks until I share this, but today it’s the last day of 2021—New Year’s Eve—and I picked up where I’d left off yesterday in the book of Matthew, which I’m reading from a blue paperback of The Passion Translation. And there, within another parable, was Jesus’s own example of gratitude nevertheless—gratitude given before, not after the miracle, the change, the answered prayer.
Nevertheless. That’s been my word this (last) year.
It was a word that jumped off the page as I read a Psalm—chapter 89, to be exact. King David, in utter anguish, gripes and moans against all the things unfairly directed towards him. His complaint stretches thirteen verses. Then, without warning, the script shifts. David chooses his words carefully, offers them in the midst of the hurt, the not-understanding. This is what he says in verse 52:
Nevertheless, blessed be our God forever and ever. Amen. Faithful is our King!
No matter the questions asked but not yet answered.
No matter the precarious position he found himself in.
He’d spent most of his life getting to know the character of God, and he knew that even when his mind lagged behind, his heart could trust in the faithfulness and goodness of his God.
So he says “thank you.” He speaks blessing. He gives honor. He lifts high the name of the Lord. He names what he knows to be true: God is good. God is faithful. God has not left me. God is still in control.
And today, this thanks-coming-first, I see it again in Matthew. It’s the story of the breaking of bread to feed the multitudes. And I’ve heard it pointed out before, but this morning it sank in. Jesus gave thanks for the bread before he broke it. Before he multiplied it. Before scare became abundance.
I’ll let you read the story for yourself:
They answered, “But all we have is five barley loaves and two fish.”
“Let me have them,” Jesus replied. Then he had everyone sit down on the grass and he then took the five loaves and two fish. He looked up into heaven, gave thanks to God, and broke the bread into pieces. He then gave it to his disciples, who in turn gave it to the crowds. And everyone ate until they were satisfied, for the food was multiplied in front of their eyes! They picked up the leftovers and filled up twelve baskets full!
Matthew 14:17-20 TPT
Where we rest our gaze
Jesus first looks up to heaven. There’s adoration in His gaze. He knows who His Father is. He knows He is secure in His love.
The direction of His gaze is important for you and I too. We can’t muster thanks nevertheless when we’re looking at our own insufficiency. We too can posture our heart towards the Father before we give voice to our thanks.
Taking a cue from my 5-year-old son, we can lean in and often say, “You’re the best Dad!” (He tells me I’m the best mom, too, about a million and one times a day. It really is the sweetest.)
It reminds me of how Jesus taught us to open our prayers: by acknowledging “Our Father in heaven,” by revering His name (Matthew 6:9). David needed to take his eyes off himself, off his problems, to see how God was still right there, still faithful in the messy middle, still good nevertheless. Where we rest our gaze matters, too, for us today.
Next, we say “thank you”
Jesus’s heaven-ward gaze leads to his utterance of gratitude. He stops to voice His thanks for what’s been given, before it becomes any more.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Jesus would have given thanks even if nothing happened next. He sees the bread as a gift—from a selfless boy who looks a whole lot like His Father, and ultimately from His Father. His thanks is not contingent on something miraculous happening.
David, too, gave thanks in the middle of the story. Before the after. Before the break-though. And from the pattern of his life, the way he knew the heart of His Father, I believe he, too, gave thanks for the present, no matter the future.
The intimate knowing that stems from abiding in Christ—this is a well of endless depth from which our gratitude can rise. There is nothing in all the world wide that can replace the abiding, the long-lingering near Him that leads to spontaneous thanks.
And there is nothing like speaking aloud our thanks—when there is no one to hear but Him, and when we are in the presence of those who will overhear our God-praise—that brings a hush of holy into our desperate angst.
Giving thanks grows faith
Now we come round to the point of it all: nevertheless-gratitude grows our faith. It reminds us of what we know: that God has been good and true, that He is good and true right now, and that He will be good and true no matter what the future brings.
In Psalm 89, the nevertheless is the pivot, the line marking the before and after. When David shifted his focus, spoke his thanks for a good and faithful God, it cleared his vision. And cleared vision gives us fresh perspective.
The Psalm that follows, chapter 90, invites us into the tension of the now and the not-yet that David, you, me, all of us live in. Our days are numbered, but God’s are not. The world where we live, with its fissures and fractures, is not our forever-home; God is home-eternal.
“Help us to remember that our days are numbered, and help us to interpret our lives correctly,” David prays (v. 12). Then he asks for wisdom: “Set your wisdom deeply in our hearts so that we may accept your correction.”
Complaint turned into a prayer for wisdom, and David’s pause to say “thank you” became the bridge.
Giving thanks builds bridges for you and I too.
Bridge-building is mission-living
As we head into this new chapter of the year 2022, may we be bridge-builders.
May we be slow to complain and quick to praise.
May we remember the past faithfulness of our God and know that we can trust that He will never, ever stop being faithful.
May we nestle in close to Him in the moments of uncertainty, pain, and exhaustion.
May we practice resting our gaze on Him, adoring Him every day of the year, so our thanks becomes spontaneous.
May we praise Him in a whisper and from the rooftops, when we are alone and when we are with our neighbors, when the thing hasn’t shifted yet and we have no guarantee that it will.
Let’s praise Him nevertheless, because nevertheless-gratitude grows our faith, and the things that grow ripple out beyond us.
May we take these borrowed (post-pivot) words from David as a prayer for today:
Let us see your miracles again, and let the rising generation
Psalm 90:16-17 TPT
see the glorious wonders you’re famous for.
O Lord our God, let your sweet beauty rest upon us.
Come work with us, and then our works will endure;
you will give us success in all we do.
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