Some days, gratitude feels like a murmur in the background of a noisy life. David, in Psalm 9:1, doesn’t settle for that. He chooses to thank the LORD with his whole heart and to actively remember what God has done. Today is an invitation to move from vague, half-felt appreciation to a clear, intentional, joy-filled “thank You” that engages your mind, your memory, and your affections.

All My Heart, Not Just a Piece

David doesn’t say he will thank God when life feels easy or when emotions run high. He makes a deliberate commitment: “I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will recount all Your wonders” (Psalm 9:1). That little phrase “I will” is powerful. It means gratitude can be a choice of the will before it is a rush of feeling. God is worthy of thanks even on days when you feel tired, distracted, or numb.

“Wholehearted” gratitude also pushes against our divided loyalties. God calls His people, “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). That kind of love can’t stay silent. It shows up in our words and in our worship. So it is right to pray with the psalmist, “Teach me Your way, O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name” (Psalm 86:11). Ask the Spirit to gather your scattered heart and aim it fully at Him in praise.

Recounting His Wonders on Ordinary Days

Thanksgiving in Psalm 9:1 is not vague. David says he will “recount” God’s wonders—literally to list them, tell them, speak them out. This is more than saying, “Thanks for everything, God.” It is slowing down to remember: the sins He has forgiven, the doors He has opened, the prayers He has answered, the times He has carried you when you had no strength left. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds” (Psalm 103:2). Forgetfulness is natural; recounting is intentional warfare against it.

At the very center of our “wonders” stands the cross and the empty tomb. If God never did another visible thing for you, the fact that Christ bore your sin, rose again, and made you His own would be enough reason to give thanks forever. “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). Because His loving devotion in Christ will never end, you will never run out of true reasons to recount His goodness—even on the grayest November day.

Practicing a Lifestyle of Thanks

Gratitude grows as it is practiced. You might start tonight by taking a few quiet minutes to name, out loud or on paper, specific “wonders” from this year—salvation, daily bread, a restored relationship, a verse that met you in the dark. Turn each memory into a sentence of praise. God invites you to bring everything to Him this way: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). Notice how thanksgiving is meant to accompany even your burdens.

This kind of practiced gratitude reshapes an entire life. “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17). You begin to fold thanksgiving into work, conversations, disappointments, and service. You obey the command, “Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). As you do, you shine in a complaining world, and your thankful heart quietly points others to the Savior you love.

Father, thank You for all Your wonders, above all for the gift of Your Son. Today, teach me to remember and recount Your goodness, and move me to live out loud with deliberate gratitude that honors You.

Let us plant ourselves on the hill of Zion and invite the world to come over to us, but never under any circumstances will we go over to them. The cross is the symbol of Christianity, and the cross speaks of death and separation, never of compromise. No one ever compromised with a cross. The cross-separated between the dead and the living. The timid and the fearful will cry Extreme! and they will be right. The cross is the essence of all that is extreme and final. The message of Christ is a call across a gulf from death to life, from sin to righteousness and from Satan to God. The first step for any Christian who is seeking spiritual power is to accept his unique position as a son of heaven temporarily detained on the earth, and to begin to live as becometh a saint. The sharp line of demarcation between him and the world will appear at once--and the world will never quite forgive him. And the sons of earth will make him pay well for separation, but it is a price he will gladly pay for the privilege of walking in fruitfulness and power.

For Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge! - Psalm 91:9

This cry of the devout soul, recognizing God as its Asylum and Home, comes in response to a revelation of God’s blessing and to large words of promise. Let us be sure that we are hearkening to the voice with which He speaks through our daily circumstances as well as by the unmistakable revelation of His will and heart in Jesus Christ. And then let us be sure that no word of His that comes fluttering down from the heavens, meaning a benediction and enclosing a promise, shall fall at our feet ungathered and unregarded, or shall be trodden into the dust by our careless heels. The manna lies all about us; let us see that we gather it. Turn His promises into your creed, and whatever He has declared in the sweet thunder of His voice, loud as the voice of many waters, and melodious as harpers harping with their harps, do you take for your profession of faith in the faithful promises of your God.

This cry of the devout soul suggests to me that our response ought to be the establishment of a close personal relation between us and God. " Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge." We must isolate ourselves and stand, God and we, alone together - at heart-grips, we grasping His hands, and He giving Himself to us - if the promises which are sent down into the world for all who will make them theirs can become ours. They are made payable to your order; you must write your name on the back before you get the proceeds. There must be what our good old Puritan forefathers used to call, in somewhat hard language, "the appropriating act of faith," in order that God’s richest blessings may be of any use to us. Put out your hand to grasp them, and say " mine," not " ours." The thought of others as sharing in them will come afterwards, for he who has once realized the absolute isolation of the soul and has been alone with God, and in solitude has taken God’s gifts as his very own, is he who will feel fellowship and brotherhood with all who are partakers of like precious faith and blessings. The "ours" will come; but you must begin with the "mine" - " my Lord and my God." " He loved me, and gave Himself for me." Just as when the Israelites gathered on the banks of the Red Sea, and Miriam and the maidens came out with songs and timbrels, though their hearts throbbed with joy, and music rang from their lips for national deliverance, their hymn made the whole deliverance the property of each, and each of the chorus sang, "The Lord is my Strength and my Song, He also is become my Salvation," so we must individualize the common blessing. Every poor soul has a right to the whole of God; and unless a man claims all the Divine nature as his, he has little chance of possessing the promised blessings.

This cry of the devout soul recognises God as He to whom we must go because we need a refuge. Only he who knows himself to be in danger bethinks himself of a refuge. It is only when we know our danger and defenselessness that God, as the Refuge of our souls, becomes precious to us. So, underlying, and an essential part of, all our confidence in God is the clear recognition of our own necessity. The sense of our own emptiness must precede our grasp of His fulness.