Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is a discipline. It doesn’t come naturally. We have to teach our children to say thank you in acknowledgment of the contributions of others. Even then, a verbal acknowledgment is no guarantee of heartfelt thanks. And this is not an issue only for the young among us. In a culture that drives us to always amass more, to upgrade to the latest model, to keep up with the Joneses, being thankful can be a challenge. After all, if our eyes are always on the lookout for the next “big thing,” they aren’t focused on the many blessings that we already have.

The above observations are put on vivid display by one of the great ironies of our culture: Thanksgiving Day, a day set aside for remembering and giving thanks for our blessings, is followed closely by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, both of which are days set aside for insatiable consumption. No sooner have we heard the call to count our blessings than we hear the call to take advantage of “great deals” to amass more. It seems that our culture believes that giving thanks and wanting more go hand in hand, but can this really be the case? Can we really focus on both at once?

I suspect that we can’t. Giving thanks is a matter of remembrance and gratitude, while consumption is so often a matter of forgetfulness and discontent. Yet we allow days of consumption to invade our day of thanks, driving us away from the very purpose of Thanksgiving!

Am I arguing that we boycott Black Friday and Cyber Monday? No. I’m just pointing out one glaring irony that is probably representative of many more of the same in our lives. The point is not that we fool ourselves on Thanksgiving Day, though many of us certainly do. The point is that we fool ourselves about thanksgiving all of the time. Thanksgiving is a discipline, and perhaps especially so in our North American context.

So this Thanksgiving, let’s practice a discipline that we should adopt all year round. Let’s enter into the discipline of giving thanks. Let’s take a moment to refocus our eyes toward the blessings that we enjoy. Let’s notice our material blessings. Let’s notice the relationships that we treasure dearly. Let’s take note of the spiritual treasures that we possess in Jesus Christ. Let’s take a moment to see, to truly see, and then offer thanks – first to our good God and then to the people who are such blessings in our lives.