Nehemiah 12:27 And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps
I woke up one spring morning not too long ago and I had to ask myself, “What is going on today? I know it is something important. Is it a graduation or a wedding?” The reason I had that question is because we had both that particular week. For me, spring is a blur because I have tunnel vision. At the Bill Rice Ranch we are coming into a very busy season, the summer camping season. A lot of things of significance, weddings, graduations, and other such things, are important but they can kind of go by unnoticed by me because I am focused on the summer and the work we have to do to prepare for that.
Sometimes we can be too busy to be thankful. In Nehemiah 12 the people had completed the wall around Jerusalem. Nehemiah 12:27 says, “And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps.” They made this an occasion. They were going to thank God for what had been done. To be sure, they had done a lot of labor and put themselves at risk to make this happen, but the Bible says God is the one who gave them the grace to do it.
This reminds me that sometimes I can be so busy that I don’t have time to be thankful. We have some event where we are supposed to be recognizing God’s goodness and thanking people who made the day possible, but we are so busy with the event itself, that we forget to actually be thankful. A person too busy to be thankful is too busy to be happy. Think about yourself. When you are happy, you are also thankful. It is not that you are thankful because you are happy; it is that you are happy oftentimes because you are thankful.
One thing you can know about people who are not happy is that they are probably not thankful. They have lost that perspective. So, there was probably still work to be done in Jerusalem. There is always more work to be done. If you wait until every problem you could ever have is resolved and every job you could do is done before you pause to thank God, then you are never going to have the time for thanksgiving.
When they had this dedication, Nehemiah said, “Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies of them that gave thanks, whereof one went on the right hand upon the wall toward the dung gate.” The other princes went the other way and they walked around the wall, giving thanks to God as they did so. Someone had to think to themselves, “Hey, those people are walking on my wall. I just finished this wall. It is beautiful and now they are walking on it!” It is so easy to forget why we are doing the work we are doing and cease to be thankful. I was just thinking the other day that there is no good time to be married or buried because there is always work to be done. How much time do you need to be thankful? Well, being thankful is something you ought to be doing every day.
Notice that the gratitude Nehemiah and the others showed God was deliberate. It was something they planned. They looked back and thought about what God had done, and that gave them courage to look forward to the unknown where they trusted God to do what only God could do. Their gratitude was deliberate.
Second, their gratitude was formal. It wasn’t stiff, tight, or unjoyful, but there was a form to it. They gave thanksgiving. There was a time to be spontaneous, but this was a time to make a big deal of it. It is like Thanksgiving, an entire holiday in which I should be giving thanks, but I should also be giving thanks in mid-July. If I am making a habit in my life of being grateful, then there will be times that there will be a form to it where I stop and recognize people or events and God’s grace in those and give thanks.
This gratitude produced giving. In verse 43 it says, “Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced.” They gave in their gratefulness. Though we should certainly do our duty, our giving should be with gratitude and gratefulness, not with grudging or because of some felt obligation.
Are you too busy to give thanks? A person too busy to be thankful is too busy to be happy, but none of us are that busy. All of us can take time to be grateful every day and then take seasons of time when we are deliberately and formally grateful and giving.