A fifty-ton female humpback whale swam into a web of crab lines off the coast of California, trapping her in a tangled mess. Hundreds of feet of line and hundreds of pounds of traps wrapped around her body as she struggled to stay afloat. Four divers came to her rescue, swimming under her belly. For an hour, they cut rope—dangerous work since one flap of her tail could have killed them. After they freed her, rather than immediately escaping, she swam to and gently nudged each diver. “It felt to me like she was thanking us,” one rescuer said.

Whether or not whales are able to express gratitude, being thankful is truly an important part of being human. It’s vital for our life with God. Many of us thank Him for larger blessings (the birth of a child or healing from a disease). However, Paul tells us to offer gratitude for every gift we receive, for every bit of goodness we encounter. We’re to be “always giving thanks to God,” the apostle writes (Ephesians 5:20). Not sometimes. Not only for exceptional moments. Always. And to make sure he’s made his point, Paul adds a bit more. “[Make] the most over every opportunity“ and give thanks “for everything,” he says (vv. 16, 20).

Genuine gratitude is more than an occasional word we offer; it’s the posture of our lives. Gratitude turns us to God over and again, always giving thanks in celebration.

Jay owned a Gideon’s Bible, yet his analytical mind didn’t permit him to accept its miracles. One thing haunted him though: the genuine faith of his friend. So Jay offered a strange prayer. He told God, “If you want me to believe in You, then do something I can’t explain.”

One day, something drew Jay to look for his Bible. It was gone. How could that be? He never lost track of things.

He drove in the rain to his teaching job at the University of Zurich. Stepping out of his car, he spotted a Gideon’s Bible on the wet pavement. That’s strange, he thought. Picking it up, he noticed the Bible was totally dry despite the rain. Something he couldn’t explain!

Gideon Bibles are named for an Old Testament hero of Israel. When God chose Gideon to lead Israel into battle against a vast army, Gideon had huge doubts. He told God, “I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece . . . , then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand” (Judges 6:37). God answered Gideon’s challenge not once but twice (vv. 39–40).

Doubt-filled prayers aren’t a pattern for us to follow. They can, however, reveal God’s character. Gideon led a tiny army to a smashing victory (Judges 7). Jay put his faith in Jesus, recognizing that his prayer had been answered by a loving God who does things we can’t explain.

Daniel was born into a Romanian orphanage. For seven years, he only left his crib to go to the bathroom. When he turned eight, a family from another country adopted him. They knew about attachment disorders—that Daniel could have difficulty attaching to them as his parents. Slowly, Daniel started to trust them. Over time, though, he began to rage to the point his parents hired a bodyguard to protect them from Daniel’s outbursts. They decided on a controversial therapy: for the next five years they were never away from Daniel even if he had a meltdown. On his thirteenth birthday Daniel broke down and for the first time told his parents he loved them very much. His mother summarized the experience: “Creating love is not for the soft and sentimental. Love is a battlefield.”

We’re all born knowing that something or someone is missing. Like Daniel, we have an attachment disorder. But God “so loved the world” so much that he took drastic action—“he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16), meeting us on earth’s battlefield in what we call the incarnation. “Light has come into the world” (v. 19).

God took drastic measures to demonstrate His great love for the world. For you. His strong, determined Father-heart beats to hear from us the words Daniel’s parents finally heard: “I love you very much.”

The angels were there all along, but no one alive had seen them. They adorned the walls of the Old North Church in Boston, looking down from on high, but had been covered with layers of paint more than a century ago. Church records indicated a contract with a member of the congregation to paint them in 1730 when the church was undergoing construction. A recent restoration project that commenced in 2017 led to the discovery of the angels.

Scripture speaks of supernatural beings—real, not painted—that were present when others were not aware. On one occasion, the prophet Elisha was surrounded by the army of the king of Aram. When his servant saw the hostile forces, he cried out, “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” (2 Kings 6:15). “ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them’ ” (v. 16). Elisha prayed for his servant’s eyes to be opened, and “he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17).

Angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14), messengers of God sent to help us. We may or may not see them, but they’re there because God has more ways of watching over us than we can imagine. And that should cause us to praise Him, like the angels do.

“You’re good at playing the guitar,” I said to a new friend playing at the church I’d recently started attending. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s my ministry.” There was that word again. Ministry. I didn’t know what that was or how someone “got” a ministry. I realized much later that my friend was using the musical ability he’d been given to serve others. When I took a class about spiritual gifts and discovered that one of my gifts was exhortation, or encouragement, I was a bit disappointed. It felt too plain. But I realized that as the Care Leader of our small group, I delighted in writing encouraging notes or calling our members. I was using one of my spiritual gifts without even knowing it.

As believers in Jesus, we’re each given spiritual gifts to serve in the church (1 Corinthians 12:6). Sometimes we don’t know what they are, so we simply serve where there’s need. The Holy Spirit will do the rest (vv. 4-6,8-11).

Just as our body has many parts with different functions, in Christ, “we though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (Romans 12: 5-6). Teaching, encouraging, giving, and showing mercy are just some of the spiritual gifts mentioned in this passage (vv. 6-8). Whatever spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit entrusts us with, let’s use them to serve others in the church—the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).

For centuries, people have been fascinated by the Holy Grail—the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. The legends surrounding King Arthur and the knights of the round table obsessed over the search for the cup. They believed it had magical powers. In film, Indiana Jones and his father, Henry, fulfilled Henry’s lifelong pursuit of the Grail.

While this makes for fascinating storytelling, the truth is much more straightforward. The cup itself has no special powers. The real power is found in what it represents. Matthew describes the scene in the upper room the night before Jesus went to the cross: “Then [Jesus] took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ ” (26:27-28). The cup is a picture of the blood that Jesus would shed on our behalf.

John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” And Paul wrote that Jesus himself is our Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). Christ paid the penalty for our sins. How thankful we are for the shed blood of our Savior, the Lamb!