I’ve been thinking about thankfulness today and as I was looking up thanks in the Word I found this place in 1 Chronicles 16 where David gives a song of thanks to the Lord at the establishment of the Tabernacle. This passage appears to be the first Psalm in a sense, that David told Asaph and his brothers to sing. They are describing the Lord, how incredible and majestic he is, the mighty things that he has done on behalf of his people, and exhorting the people to thank and praise the Lord because of these things. I love what they said in verse twenty-seven, (KJV)
“Glory and honor are in His presence, strength and gladness are in His place.”
Sometimes when I read things like that I imagine that all of those characteristics, Glory, Honor, Strength, and Gladness, are people, or spirits, and that they are just hanging out with him. Glory and Honor are with Him in the kitchen and Strength and Gladness are chilling out on His couch. 
Can you imagine what someone would look like who was the embodiment of honor, or strength or gladness? I think of strength as someone who is the epitome of a Greek god, bronzed, muscles bulging everywhere, short cropped blond hair, strong jaw line. Whereas gladness might be more lithe and lean but with a great sense of humor, always laughing and full of fun with curly dark hair and bright eyes.
Just for fun I decided to look up those words, because they are different in various translations, and see if I could get to a root meaning. It was hard to find specifics but the best that I could find was basically this,
The freshness and beauty, the lively color, and the ornaments and garments representing deserved honor and majesty are right in front of his face. His material, social, and political strength is joined by gladness and joy in the place where he lives and stands.
That’s a lot of words that are pretty but it was hard for me to get my head around it so I rephrased it a bit and this is where I landed,
His full and living beauty joined by all that represents His majestic character are what you see immediately when you meet Him. The evidence of his ability to powerfully move on your behalf and to bring the utmost joy and gladness into your life fill the atmosphere around Him.
The thing that always gets me when I read things like his about the Lord is remembering where He lives, where is His place? “Abide in me, and I in you.” (John 15:4) All of that living beauty and majestic character, his power and joy and gladness are living inside of me right now. That is something to be thankful for.
