Come with Thanksgiving. Do Not Miss His Heart.

Come with Thanksgiving. Do Not Miss His Heart.

Learning to enter His presence with more than praise

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.”
— Psalm 100:4

Christ Jesus was a Man of sorrows. He was also anointed with the oil of joy.

It is always fitting to enter the presence of God with thanksgiving. It is never fitting to do so without regard for the grief that may be in His heart. Cheerfulness toward a friend in mourning can be a gift. Cheerfulness that is not sensitive to their pain is not.

Rejoicing in the Lord at all times is correct. The danger is that thanksgiving and praise can become a way of arriving that never asks what is in His heart.

This is not an argument against thanksgiving. It is a desire for a larger heart. The gates remain open. The invitation still stands. The call is not to withhold praise until we have felt enough. The call is to arrive carefully enough to notice Him and the possible grief in His heart.

The first thing Scripture says about the heart of God

The first time the Bible speaks of God’s heart, it is not singing. “The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.” He looked at His creation and saw that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. He was wounded by what He loved. This was not the grief of a God who had lost control. It was the deep grief of a Father watching His children destroy themselves. (Genesis 6:5–6)

From my 2019 journal: “This morning my heart longs to be a man after the heart of God; to understand the emotions of God and perceive the ways of God.” That sentence was not a request for more information. It was a request to be moved by the same things that move Him. A heart after His own heart will begin to weep for the aspects that cause Him to weep.

When praise skips the thing that is breaking Him

Scripture never treats joy and grief as enemies. “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” (2 Corinthians 6:10) We serve a God whose heart has known intense grief, a Redeemer who wept over Jerusalem. Paul wanted to know not only the power of the resurrection but the fellowship of His sufferings. (Philippians 3:10)

To rush past that grief on the way to praise is not maturity. It is praise that never pauses long enough to hear Him — and so never comes to know the deeper things of His heart.

This generation’s emphasis on praise and worship has been inspiring in many ways. It has recovered joy. It has taught many to come in singing. And yet it is possible to recover the song and still miss the fellowship of His sufferings. Something is wrong when we can passionately rejoice before God, and yet so few have felt His burden, or entered the depths of weeping with Him.

The issue is not that praise is wrong. The issue is that praise can be taking place while not comprehending the things that break the heart of God.

They could not walk together until they knelt

A picture from Streams in the Desert has stayed with me. Sorrow and Joy meet on the road and find they cannot travel together. Sorrow knows how to weep with those who weep, but not how to rejoice. Joy knows how to rejoice with those who rejoice, but not how to weep. Their paths split — night forest and morning meadow — until both become aware of a King standing beside them. They fall to their knees.

Sorrow looks up and sees the King of Joy: many crowns, and nail prints that look like the scars of victory. Joy looks up and sees the King of Sorrow: a crown of thorns, and nail prints that look like the scars of agony. They are looking at the same Person. Only then can they rise, take one another’s hand, and walk into the world sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

The two are not balanced by effort. They are held together in Christ, because He has already carried both to their furthest point. Fellowship with His sufferings is not an extra assignment of pain. It is being drawn into the One whose heart is large enough for tears and thanksgiving at once.

The other side of the same heart

The heart filled with pain over sin is also the heart that gathers lambs and carries them close. “He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.” (Isaiah 40:11)

Grief and tenderness are not two moods that trade places in God. They are one love looking in two directions at the same time: toward what ruins His children, and toward the children themselves. He does not set affection down in order to grieve, or set grief down in order to be kind. The same love that cannot bear what wounds them is the love that will not let them go.

Thanksgiving may be sincere and still never touch the thing that is breaking His heart. We may thank the Love that meets us, and fail to notice that this same Love is, in the same moment, grieving over what is destroying the people He loves — including us. Grief here is not the opposite of welcome. It is welcome that is not blind.

The mark

David was called a man after God’s own heart. The Lord still searches the earth for hearts fully committed to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9) The commitment He seeks is alignment of affection: grief over what He grieves, communion where He remains, tenderness toward those He carries.

When judgment passed through the city in Ezekiel’s vision, the Lord sent a man with an inkhorn to set a mark on the foreheads of those who sighed and cried over the abominations done in its midst. The mark was protection. It was first identification. These were the people whose hearts had been pulled into His. (Ezekiel 9:4)

The sighing is evidence that the Spirit who searches the deep things of God has begun to sound those depths inside a human life. The ones who can rejoice at all times are also the ones who can still weep over what God weeps over. A Man of sorrows, anointed with the oil of joy above His fellows.

Before the praise rises

The longing does not require a new technique. It requires a slower arrival and then abiding.

Sit still long enough to ask, “What is grieving You?”

Do not rush. Do not praise past it.

Let the Spirit search. Sometimes He answers with a heaviness you cannot shake, sometimes with a name that will not leave you, sometimes with something you had failed to see.

Then let thanksgiving rise from that place — not instead of it.

Thanksgiving that has looked is different from thanksgiving that has looked away. It is quieter. It costs more. It can carry both tears and joy because it has knelt where Sorrow and Joy finally knelt.

The gates are open. They have always been open. The mark in Ezekiel was not given to the loudest worshipers. It was given to the ones who could still sigh. The same King who receives our praise is still looking for those who sigh and cry.

Aaron Beiler