On Being Thankful

Thankfulness

These are challenging times, aren’t they? I don’t need to tell you that one could be excused for thinking that it’s easier to keep your head down and try to do business as usual, but life has a way of horning in sometimes. Even the Thanksgiving holiday hasn’t been immune from controversy. I’m not here to debate whether it’s warranted or not, but rather to draw significant attention to the purpose of the holiday. In general we tend to take things for granted. I very rarely question whether the lights will come on when I flip the switch. It just works…until it doesn’t. Then, all of a sudden, I have an instant appreciation for the electricity that powers my lights and charges my devices. So, this Thanksgiving I thought I would pass along a few thoughts and some words of (I hope) encouragement to you as you navigate life and some of the crazy that we’re going through.

I make no apologies for my Christian faith. It defines me or, rather, the Christ of Christianity does. My identity is in Him. He has purchased forgiveness for me through his death and resurrection. A burden of debt through sin that I could never repay has been lifted from my balance sheet. And when I say I could never repay it, I mean that so strongly as to say that I shouldn’t try to repay it. Instead, he has asked me only to be thankful. True, that thankfulness is often expressed in a sincere desire to be pleasing to him, but I never think for a minute that I am in any way repaying a dime of what I owe. How could I? There is nothing I could render him that he has not first given to me. Hebrews 13:15 has this to say, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that openly profess his name." Love to tell you more, so please reach out to me!

The purpose of the Sunday school lesson is this: Gratitude for what God has given needs to be encouraged. I have been in multiple countries all around the world and I have never ceased to be amazed at the financial blessings that we in the United States enjoy. Some may scoff that the fiscal challenges that face our nation and the increasingly reckless, and often feckless policies created by our government, but it’s hard to define just how far we would need to fall to even be close to the poverty I have seen around the world. Most of my friends are still able to praise or complain about local restaurants. The vast majority of my friends are comparatively healthier, better educated, and have a much greater access to care than most of the people on the planet. Again, the point here is that gratitude should not only be a reasonable response, but that it should also be an expected one. Thankfulness is literally an appreciation expressed by the recipient of a kindness, gift, help, favor, or other type of generosity. Think about that! It assumes that you and I are debtors. It assumes that we have been granted something that we were not initially owed. If it was owed to us than no gratitude would be necessary. After all, it’s just a repayment from someone who was actually in your debt, so that can’t be the case here. You and I must freely admit that we are in debt to someone for the goodness they’ve shown to us. Even if you disagree with me on who that someone is, you are at once confronted with the reality that we have an obligation to show gratitude. It is the reasonable response.

Some might find it cringey, but I think it’s appropriate to be thankful for breath in our lungs, sunshine on our faces, rain on our lawns, family and/or friends that love us and that we can love in return, clothes on our backs, food in our bellies, the ability to enjoy nature, to be able to read and write, create, build, encourage, smile, share, think, debate, decide. There are one thousand and one things for which we can be thankful, but like the electricity keeping the lights on we tend to easily slip into taking things for granted. May this Thanksgiving remind us to do better. May we consider that maybe the only thing that really needs to be “cancelled” sometimes is our rotten attitudes and ungratefulness. So let’s do that while the lights are still on. Because you never know when the day might come that they’re turned off—never to be turned back on again. Happiest of Thanksgivings to you and yours.