I’m amazed how often great men of the kingdom finish poorly or even badly. Hezekiah was one of the great kings of Judah, but in 2 Chronicles the text says, “In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah” (2 Chron. 32:24-26).

The important phrase in this text is, “he did not respond to the kindness of the Lord.” As humans, we clearly have a propensity to forget the Lord by forgetting the good things he has done for us. That seems to come in two forms. One is that we forget all the good God has done for us because we are disappointed in the outcome of one thing. The second is that we forget that God has been the source of our blessings and success and start to believe that we are successful because of how amazing we are.

I was visiting with a Free Indeed leader in another state last night who shared that a woman in her church who had lost a six-day-old child, no longer trusts the Lord. She has two other children who are healthy and happy, but she has measured God’s goodness and faithfulness based on one circumstance that did not turn out as she had hoped. Obviously, her loss no small thing, but to decide that God cannot be trusted is even a bigger thing. I have seen numerous others do that as well because they faced some hardship or disappointment and believed that a good God or a faithful God would not have let them experience that loss or hardship. In difficult moments we must remember that the absence of pain is reserved for heaven not for our time on this earth.

In addition, we need to remember that God is also the source of our success. Certainly, our abilities and hard work can bring some level of success, but our abilities and capacity to work are from God. I have also seen talented and hardworking people that never seemed to reap the rewards of their efforts. The Bible tells us in numerous places that wealth and blessings come from God. We are also told that stewarding that wealth in a godly way can be a huge challenge. Remembering that our wealth is a blessing from God is essential to stewarding it well and not ending up in the ditch because of our pride.

Hezekiah had brought revival to Judah and had served God in may ways, but in his later years he apparently took credit for all of that in his own heart and, perhaps, even believed that God had healed him of a terminal illness because he had earned the blessing, Pride became a huge stumbling block for a man who had once honored God with all of his heart.

The question is how do we guard against taking offense with God because he failed to respond to one situation as we wanted him too and how do we guard against forgetting that our accomplishments and successes are also gifts from God?

One essential way to guard against failing to “respond to the kindness of God” is to develop the habit off giving thanks not only for all the big blessings but for the very small blessings of life and seeing those blessings as gifts from God that we don’t deserve any more that we deserve salvation. David declared, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Ps 100:3–4).

Thanksgiving opens the gate that lets us into the presence of God and prompts our praise. When I am disappointed in one outcome, I must remember how often God has been good to me in other circumstances. A practice of thanksgiving reminds me of his goodness in every other part of my life so that I don’t judge him to be unkind or unfaithful when I am disappointed.

Thanksgiving also reminds me of the source of my blessings, my wealth, and my success. It guards against pride because it is a constant reminder that every good thing in my life has come to me by the grace of God. Men and women in the kingdom of God who have been great servants at one time can begin to take credit for all they have accomplished and become proud. It seems that in our later years, we are especially vulnerable to that temptation. Solomon forgot God in his later years and became an idolator. Hezekiah became proud and invited the discipline of God on himself and his nation. Through the years, amazing church leaders and evangelists have also fallen prey to spiritual pride and sexual temptation and have forgotten that the God they had been preaching was the source of their gifts and the source of their accomplishments in the kingdom.

A life of thanksgiving for the little blessings and the big, is one practice that can help us stay on track. Thank God for a beautiful morning, for the capacity to get out of bed and go to work, and for seasons in your life when you are not facing a crisis. Thank God for the handy parking spot and for the blessing of friends. Thank God for a night’s rest and for everything that makes you smile. When trouble comes, thank him for his promises and when disappointment comes, thank God that he has promised to bring good out of every hard circumstance.

I attended a funeral of a church leader in our area yesterday who had just died of cancer. The preacher said, “When you can’t understand what God is doing with his hands, you can always trust his heart.” I thought that was a good word. Constant thanksgiving can train our hearts to trust in him and in his heart. May we all be known in heaven for our thanksgiving because God is good…all the time and his goodness drips on us in many, many ways large and small. To forget that is to invite failure.