Christian Community: Thankfulness

We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God or giving us bretheren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank Him for what He does give us daily. And is not what has been given us enough: brothers who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? . . . In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life . . . If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together