This coming Thursday is the American holiday that is officially designated as Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, however, for many Americans, this Thursday won’t be Thanksgiving Day, but merely Turkey Day.
This observation reminds me of a cute story:
Thanksgiving was only eight days away. Miss Michelle, who was teaching in a church’s mid-week children’s program, decided to ask her preschoolers about the upcoming holiday. She thought it would be effective to have the class playfully correct some wrong ideas about Thanksgiving.
So she said, “Now let me see. Thanksgiving. That’s the day when we think about all the stuff we have. And how we want more things than anybody else has. And how we don’t care about anybody but ourselves. And –”
“No!” the kids started to yell. “No-o-o!”
Then one little guy called out, “That’s not Thanksgiving, Miss Michelle, that’s Christmas!”
My point is that not all families actually engage in the practice of giving thanks on Thanksgiving. And with that, yet another story comes to mind:
One Thanksgiving season a family was seated around their table, looking at the annual holiday bird. From the oldest to the youngest, they were to express their praise. When they came to the 5-year-old in the family, he began by looking at the turkey and expressing his thanks to the turkey, saying although he had not tasted it he knew it would be good. After that rather novel expression of thanksgiving, he began with a more predictable line of credits, thanking his mother for cooking the turkey and his father for buying the turkey. But then he went beyond that. He joined together a whole hidden multitude of benefactors, linking them with cause and effect.
He said, “I thank you for the checker at the grocery store who checked out the turkey. I thank you for the grocery store people who put it on the shelf. I thank you for the farmer who made it fat. I thank you for the man who made the feed. I thank you for those who brought the turkey to the store.”
Using his Columbo-like little mind, he traced the turkey all the way from its origin to his plate. And then at the end he solemnly said “Did I leave anybody out?”
His 2-year-older brother, embarrassed by all those proceedings, said, “God.”
Solemnly and without being flustered at all, the 5-year-old said, “I was about to get to him.”
This is the question I want to put to all of us today—just a few days before Thanksgiving:
Assuming we actually give thanks at all this Thursday . . .
Will we get to God this Thanksgiving?
In this Thanksgiving devotional blog my goal is to help prepare anyone reading it to have a truly blessed day this Thursday by encouraging them to be careful to get to God this Thanksgiving.
To do this, I want to make the following points:
First, giving thanks to God for the many ways He’s blessed us is simply the right thing to do.
Giving thanks to God is the right thing to do for several reasons:
Giving thanks to God is the right thing to do because doing so is what sets the true worshipper of God apart from those who engage in idolatry.
In Romans 1:18-23 the Apostle Paul states very clearly that the essence of idolatry is an unwillingness to give thanks to the God who created us. According to this passage, giving thanks to God is one of the actions that separate the true worshipper of God apart from those who, because of their sin in their lives, choose to worship idols instead. Thus, giving thanks to the true God of the universe, the God who created us in his image, the God who wants us to experience a personal relationship with him, is simply the right thing to do.
Giving thanks to God is the right thing to do because it can actually affect our level of happiness in this life.
Surely everyone reading this blog wants to be a happy, joyful person. With that thought in mind, look carefully at these words of advice penned by the English spiritual writer William Law:
If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.
In a sermon entitled “An Attitude of Gratitude” John Yates says:
“John Henry Jowett, a British preacher of an earlier generation, said this about gratitude: ‘Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.’ What did he mean? He meant that gratitude, like a vaccine, can prevent the invasion of a disgruntled, discouraged spirit. Like an antitoxin, gratitude can prevent the affects of the poisons of cynicism, criticalness, and grumbling. Like an antiseptic, a spirit of gratitude can soothe and heal the most troubled spirit.”
Thus, for all those reading this blog whose spirits need soothing and healing as we approach this holiday season, I recommend that we sincerely give thanks to God this Thursday!
Giving thanks to God is the right thing to do because it can also benefit our physical health!
A few years ago Fox News reported that a recent study of 1,000 people aged 65-85 points to the importance of a positive attitude in dealing with life. After almost 10 years of follow-up, researchers found that people who described themselves as optimistic had a 55 percent lower risk of death from all causes and a 23 percent lower risk of heart-related death. Optimistic people tend to be more physically active, drink less, and smoke less. They cope with stress more effectively.
What does this research tell us? It suggests that a positive, hopeful, optimistic attitude toward life can help us live longer as well as happier lives!
I want to go on to suggest that, because the precursor to giving thanks is the act of counting our blessings, the practice of giving thanks can help us become more positive, hopeful and optimistic in our approach to life.
Furthermore, this leads me to say …
Giving thanks to God is the right thing to do because all of us have some significant reasons to be thankful.
A teacher asked her students to list what they thought were the present Seven Wonders of the World. The students cast the most votes for:
- Egypt’s Great Pyramids;
- The Taj Mahal;
- The Grand Canyon;
- The Panama Canal;
- The Empire State Building;
- St. Peter’s Basilica; and
- The Great Wall of China.
While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had not turned in her paper yet. She asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list.
The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.”
The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.”
The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are:
- to see;
- to hear;
- to touch;
- to taste;
- to feel;
- to laugh; and
- to love.
Here’s something to think about: How many of these Seven Wonders of the World are at work in our lives?
In The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner writes:
“[One] winter I sat in Army fatigues somewhere near Anniston, Alabama, eating my supper out of a mess kit. The infantry training battalion that I had been assigned to was on bivouac. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and everything was mud. The sun had gone down.
“I was still hungry when I finished and noticed that a man nearby had something left over that he was not going to eat. It was a turnip, and when I asked him if I could have it, he tossed it over to me. I missed the catch, the turnip fell to the ground, but I wanted it so badly that I picked it up and started eating it anyway, mud and all.
“And then, as I ate it, time deepened and slowed down again. With a lurch of the heart that is real to me still, I saw suddenly, almost as if from beyond time altogether, that not only was the turnip good, but the mud was good too, even the drizzle and cold were good, even the Army that I had dreaded for months.
“Sitting there in the Alabama winter with my mouth full of cold turnip and mud, I could see at least for a moment how if you ever took truly to heart the ultimate goodness and joy of things, even at their bleakest, the need to praise someone or something for it would be so great that you might even have to go out and speak of it to the birds of the air.”
And yet, there is something better we can do with our thanksgiving; we can not only speak of it to God, we can share with others.
This leads me to say that …
Giving thanks is the right thing to do because it can have a powerful effect on those around us.
In a leadership prayer breakfast held in Wheaton, Illinois a few years back, Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Krulak told the story of how he became a Christ follower. The general explained:
Thirty-five years ago I was a young second lieutenant just graduated from the Naval Academy, married 14 days after I graduated. My wife and I went down to Quantico, Virginia, home of the basic school where officers learn about honor, courage, and commitment. At that time in my life I thought I was a cross between John Wayne and Tom Cruise. Because I was married, I shared a room with another married officer named John Listerman. John was a wonderful human. He exuded goodness. If I asked him for his arm, he would have said, “Where do you want me to cut it off? At the wrist? The elbow?” John was a Christian. That meant nothing to me other than Gee, what a nice guy. I guess this Christian stuff must be pretty good.
Upon graduating from basic school, John and I went to Camp Pendleton, California, where we joined the same battalion preparing to go to Vietnam. And I saw another side of John Listerman: he was a tremendous leader—aggressive and technically proficient. People loved him. He was committed to his troops; his troops were committed to him. He was a Marine’s Marine.
On a December morning in 1965 John and I went to war. John Listerman’s war lasted one day.
We were on patrol moving down a trail through the jungle. We came around a corner in that trail, and we ran into an ambush. John took the first round, a 50-caliber round right in his kneecap. As his kneecap burst, the crack was so loud it sounded like a mortar exploding. It threw him up in the air. As he was dropping, the second round hit him right below the heart and exited out his side. I was wounded also but nowhere near as badly. I saw John about 30 meters away on his back, his leg blown off.
I crawled up to him, and I wanted to say, “Are you okay? Can I do anything?” but before I could do that, his head turned to me and he said, “How are you doing, Chucker? Are you okay?”
I said, “Yes, John. I’m okay.” He said, “Are my men safe?” I said, “John, your people are okay.” At that point he turned his head and looked to the sky and repeated over and over, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for caring for my people. Thank you for caring for me.”
General Charles Krulak went on in that leadership prayer breakfast to explain that it was that experience of hearing his Christian friend giving thanks to God in those adverse circumstances that caused him to eventually become committed Christian himself.
Mark it down, this business of giving thanks is important stuff. It can make the difference as to whether or not people around us ever end up connecting with Christ!
For all these reasons, giving thanks to God is simply the right thing to do this holiday season.
Then again …
Second, according to the Bible, giving thanks to God should be a lifestyle, not something we do once a year.
British author G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
It is true that the Bible seems to assume that we Christians will pause to offer thanksgiving to God before we eat our meals. Can you guess what the following passages all have in common?
- Matthew 14:19
- Mark 8:6
- Luke 22:19-20 Luke 24:30-31
- Acts 27:33-37
- Romans 14:6
- 1 Timothy 4:3-4
All of these passages refer to the practice of Christians offering thanks to God before they eat a meal. So, this practice of pausing to pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God before we eat is indeed a biblical practice.
On the other hand, there are other passages in the New Testament that indicate that giving thanks shouldn’t be limited to meal times; giving thanks should be something we do constantly every day of our lives! Take a gander at a few more passages that talk about giving thanks:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6)
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, {11} being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully {12} giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:10-12)
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17)
Be joyful always; {17} pray continually; {18} give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Hebrews 13:15)
I’m pretty sure you get where I’m going with this: the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the God we serve wants his people to be folks of faith who routinely give thanks to him for everything that happens in our lives.
Finally, here is one last point that I feel the need to make:
Third, in the end, giving thanks to God is a crucial, important choice that each of us must make for ourselves.
Bob Reccord, author of the book, Forged by Fire: How God Shapes Those He Loves, writes:
As I write this book, I’m having to exercise the faith of dealing with the prison of pain. Unexpectedly, I suffered a severe cervical spinal injury. The pain was so excruciating, the hospital staff couldn’t even get me into the MRI until they had significantly sedated me. The MRI showed significant damage at three major points in the cervical area. The orthopedic surgeon’s assistant later told me, “Bob, your neck is a wreck.” He said there was hardly any way I could avoid surgery.
Because of the swelling of injured nerve bundles, the only way I could relieve the pain was to use a strong, prescribed narcotic and to lie on bags of ice. Sleep, what little there was, came only by sitting in a reclining chair.
Approximately 48 hours from the onset of the injury, doctors estimated that I lost about 80 percent of the strength in my left arm. Three fingers on my left hand totally lost feeling. Even the slightest movements would send pain waves hurtling down my left side and shoulder. To add insult to injury, physicians said I had to step away completely from my work (which I love), and begin to wear a neck brace…24 hours a day for five weeks.
About halfway through that experience, I found myself sitting on the screened-in porch behind our home. The day was cold and blustery, but I was committed to being outside, just for a change of scenery. Suddenly a bird landed on the railing and began to sing. On that cold, rainy day, I couldn’t believe any creature had a reason to sing. I wanted to shoot that bird! But he continued to warble, and I had no choice but to listen.
The next day found me on the porch again, but this time the atmosphere was bright, sunny, and warm. As I sat, being tempted to feel sorry for myself, suddenly the bird (at least it looked like the same one) returned. And he was singing again! Where was that shotgun?
Then an amazing truth hit me head on: the bird sang in the cold rain as well as the sunny warmth. His song was not altered by outward circumstances, but it was held constant by an internal condition. It was as though God quietly said to me, “You’ve got the same choice, Bob. You will either let external circumstances mold your attitude, or your attitude will rise above the external circumstances. You choose!”
As I bring this devotional blog to a close I want to suggest that this is true for all of us. No one can force us to give thanks ever, much less this Thursday. It’s a choice each of us has to make for ourselves. The question is: Will we do so?
As you decide, here’s one last story to keep in mind:
An atheist was walking through the woods, admiring all the “accidents” that evolution had created. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran away as fast as he could up the path.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was closing. Somehow he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes. He looked again, and the bear was even closer. His heart was pounding, and he tried to run faster. He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up, but the bear was right over him, reaching for him with its left paw and raising its right paw to strike him.
At that instant the atheist cried, “Oh my God!”
Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky, “You deny my existence for all these years, teach others that I don’t exist, and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”
The atheist looked directly into the light and said, “I would feel like a hypocrite to become a Christian after all these years, but perhaps you could make the bear a Christian?”
“Very well,” said the voice.
The light went out. The river ran. The sounds of the forest resumed. Then the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed its head, and spoke: “Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful.”
My point?
Just this: genuine Christ-followers give thanks!
This Thursday should be much more for us than mere Turkey Day. I encourage you to make the choice to really give thanks this Thursday. And while you’re at it … make sure you get to God.
Something to think about.
