Thankfulness

As a child, one of my least favorite traditions was writing thank you cards. After every Christmas and Birthday, my mom would force me to sit at the table and write out those little cards to everyone who gave us presents. And I must have repeated the same banal phrase on every card about how much that particular gift meant to me. Can anyone else relate to me in this experience?

This upcoming Thursday is Thanksgiving. An entire day set aside by our country and culture to celebrate and give thanks. Friends, as you prepare your Turkey and mop your floors, I’m exhorting all of us to reflect on how Christians should be thankful, both this week and all weeks. I’ll offer up three biblical characteristics of our thankfulness: We should thank God willingly, frequently, and communally.

We are willingly thankful when we are not coerced into thanking God. It’s not done out of guilt or ritual, but rather from a heart convinced that it has received an undeserved gift. Thankfulness requires humility. Receiving payment for our efforts is a wage and not a gift. But thankfulness occurs when we recognize that everything we have and all that we are is a gift from God.

Nobody wants to be told to be thankful, especially when you don’t naturally feel gratitude. All of us have things that God has placed in our lives that we don’t want to be thankful for. But lacking thankfulness is not an innocent preference. Listen to Paul’s warning in Romans 1 about people who willfully refused to honor God with gratitude, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” A proud man resists giving thanks, but a humble man willingly thanks God for all that he is and all that he has.

Second, we should offer thanks frequently. Frequently offering thanks requires intentionality. None of us defaults to thankfulness. There is a theory in social science that when people experience financial success, they will first attribute it to themselves: their own efforts, ability, or skills. But when we experience financial struggles, our first reaction is to look outside of ourselves for the cause: the economy, the president, company leadership, etc. I think the same tendency will keep us from thankfulness. Success leads us to self-reliance, which is antithetical to thankfulness. And struggle leads to finger-pointing and blame shifting, which is also antithetical to thankfulness.

But Christians should understand that both our success and our struggle are sourced, first and foremost in God. We will drive this truth into our hearts as we frequently and intentionally thank God and others in our lives. Developing the practice of identifying something to be thankful for, regardless of our feelings, is a sign of maturity. Paul tells the Christians in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 to, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of Christ Jesus for you.” All of us know that it requires discipline to ‘rejoice always’ and to ‘pray without ceasing’, but it requires the same amount of intentionality and discipline to ‘give thanks in all circumstances’. Christian, give thanks frequently.

And finally, God’s followers give thanks communally. Giving thanks almost always requires speaking words, which is usually done in the context of community. As people, we are encouraged by the stories of God’s faithfulness in the lives of others. In this way, giving thanks communally both encourages us and serves as a reminder to our brothers and sisters of how God is working in their lives, even when they don’t feel it.

I’m thinking about the opening lines of Psalm 118 which tells the people of Israel to, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” Or, on a different level, when Paul tells the Colossians that he and Timothy, “always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.” The act of communally giving thanks is meant to encourage our brothers and sisters in their faith.

Church family as you gather this week to celebrate thanksgiving, make every effort to willingly, frequently, and communally thank both God and those around you.