Even Here, Thanks
Even Here, Thanks
Gratitude is not only for the seasons that feel finished. It is for the ones still unfolding, even the hard ones.
Most gratitude practices start from a place of looking back at what has already gone well. Count your blessings. Name what you are thankful for. And that is good and important. But there is another kind of gratitude that the prophet Habakkuk shows us, one that does not wait for the harvest to come in before it gives thanks. It is gratitude in the middle of the waiting. Gratitude before the resolution. Gratitude even here.
Habakkuk wrote these words during a time of real hardship, facing the prospect of famine and loss, everything that sustained daily life potentially failing all at once. And yet what he writes is one of the most striking declarations of joy and trust found anywhere in Scripture.
"Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls; Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."
Habakkuk 3:17-18 · NKJVScripture quoted from the New King James Version (NKJV).
Though. That word appears again and again before the yet. Though the fig tree does not blossom. Though the fields yield nothing. Though the flock is gone. Habakkuk does not pretend the hard things are not hard. He names them honestly, one by one. And then he says yet. Yet I will rejoice. The gratitude does not erase the difficulty. It exists alongside it. That is what makes it so real and so possible for us too.
You do not have to wait for your circumstances to resolve before you can be thankful. Gratitude and hardship can occupy the same moment. Habakkuk shows us how.
This is not about pretending everything is fine when it is not. It is about anchoring your joy somewhere deeper than your circumstances. Habakkuk's rejoicing was not in the harvest. It was in the God of his salvation. The harvest could fail completely and the foundation of his joy would remain untouched, because it was never built on the harvest in the first place.
If this week has had its own version of an empty field or a fig tree that did not blossom, this verse is for you. Not to dismiss what is hard. But to remind you that your gratitude does not have to wait for it to be resolved. You can bring both to God today. The honest naming of what is hard, and the yet that follows it.
Though the field is empty, yet I will rejoice. Gratitude is not the absence of hardship. It is trust that outlasts it.
- Is there an area of my life right now that feels like an empty field, something that has not produced what I hoped for?
- What would it look like to bring that honestly to God this week, without pretending it does not hurt?
- Where is my joy currently anchored, in my circumstances or in God Himself, and what would shifting that anchor look like?
- Write your own though and yet statement this week, naming something hard and then declaring your trust in God despite it.
Lord, I bring You what feels unresolved or empty right now. I will not pretend it does not matter. But I choose, even here, to rejoice in You. Not because everything is fixed, but because You are the God of my salvation and that has not changed. Be my joy today, regardless of what the field looks like. Amen.
With love and grace,
Honeycomb & Heart