I. Of the unthankfulness which so seriously depresses and blights our whole modern Christian life, one reason, in many cases, is that we do not see our great Benefactor. I do not forget that some of us may feel true gratitude to those human friends who have been kind to us in years past, and who are now out of sight. But take men in the mass, and it is quite otherwise. Little by little, as the years pass, too many of us forget the benefits that we owe to the dead. The pressure, the importunity of the present and of the seen makes us overlook the great debt of thought and love which we owe to the past and the unseen. Then God's very generosity only provokes our unthankfulness. He keeps out of sight, and we take it for granted that He would show Himself if He could, that His agency is only invisible because it is shadowy or unreal.
II. A second cause of unthankfulness is our imperfect appreciation of God's gifts. The true source of this is that dulness, that harshness of spiritual perception which health and prosperity too often inflict upon the soul. We cannot see clearly through the thick film which has thus been formed over the spiritual eye. If we did see, we should own with full and thankful hearts that love is love, blessings are blessings, salvation is salvation, whether we share them with the many or the few.
III. And a third reason in many minds against cultivating and expressing thankfulness to God men do not mention it, but it is the utilitarian one men do not see the good of thankfulness. The value of prayer, of course, in Christian eyes is plain enough. Christians believe that certain blessings are to be obtained from God through the instrumentality of prayer, and not to obey is to forfeit the blessings which prayer obtains. "But thankfulness," men say to themselves, "what does it win for us that is not already ours without it? God blesses us out of the joy of doing so; and whether we thank Him or not must be of small concern to such a Being as He is." Certainly, God does not expect to be repaid for His benevolence by any equivalent in the way of thanksgiving that you or I can possibly offer Him. And yet He will have us thank Him, not for His own sake, but for ours. Just as prayer is the recognition of our dependence upon God amid the darkness and uncertainties of the future, so thankfulness is the recognition of our indebtedness to God for the blessings of the past. And to acknowledge truth like this is always moral strength; to refuse to acknowledge truth like this is always moral weakness.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 129.
Reference: Luke 17:19. G. Macdonald, Miracles of Our Lord,p. 93.