Today people all across the United States will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. As we celebrate this day of thanks, we are particularly mindful of the harvest; family tables will be decorated with things appropriate to the season and the day that we celebrate.
Families will gather together and sit down to abundant feasts of turkey with all the trimmings, with desserts like apple or pumpkin pie. We will feast on the fruits of the harvest. In prayer and in action, we will remember the poor and those less fortunate than ourselves. We will hold dinners at churches, shelters, and soup kitchens and we will have given a little extra to the food banks. And we will feel good about all of these things.
It's good because it is right that we should feast and thank God for what He has given us; it is good to celebrate and to share the bounty of the earth; it is good to express our thanks and to rejoice over the goodness of God.
However, it also might be lacking in something, depending on our overall attitude and approach to life and to what God has done for us and does for us.
Some of you might remember the old Ma and Pa Kettle movie and television series. A common scene took place in many of the episodes: Ma Kettle would bang the triangle on the porch, and from every corner around the yard hordes of screaming, yelling kids would pour into the house fighting for a place at the table. Then Ma, in her loud tones would holler, "Hold it!" and everyone would freeze in silence. Pa Kettle would roll his eyes heavenward, tip his hat, and say, "Much obliged." And immediately the chaos began as abruptly as it had stopped.
God calls us to much more than a tip of the hat. God calls us not only to a day of thanksgiving; He calls us to a life of thanksgiving.
There is a big difference between giving thanks on one day and living thanks always. Thanksgiving Day is a specific event with a clear beginning and a clear ending. The spirit of Thanksgiving, though, should be more than an event: it should be a way of life.
Giving thanks is important. When we give thanks as a community of faith, as a family, we are reminded of all the many good things and all the good people that have been given to us by God. We remember that we have been blessed; we remember that there is a greater good than ourselves and that we are truly dependent on God and on the goodness of God.
But the temptation is to then return to our independence, to forget God, to think that we and our efforts are solely responsible for all that we have, forgetting that even the mere ability to do things is a gift from God. This is where living a life and attitude of thanksgiving comes in. And we begin to "live thanks" when we open our lives up to God and give God the ultimate priority in our lives.
As we live a life of thanksgiving, as we humble ourselves before God and acknowledge that he is the source of all good things, our awareness of our blessings increases, our joy becomes fuller, and we find ourselves in an attitude and state of grace.
Our continual thankfulness for our blessings will turn into a lifetime of living thanks, of living the blessings and sharing the blessings because we know in the deepest parts of our hearts that God is the giver of it all.
As you give thanks this Thanksgiving Day, remember your calling to be joyful always, to pray continually, and to give thanks in all circumstances. It is what God wants of you and for you. In it, you will find the fullness of what God has in store for you. +
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