Thanksgiving - a Way of Life

I want to write about thanksgiving, but it is hard to get started, where to begin? I want to write that thanksgiving should be woven into the fabric of our lives, that the Christian should be known by his or her life of thankfulness - thankfulness to God and thankfulness for others.

Paul writes that when humanity turns from God and is unthankful that it descends in a downward spiral (Romans 1:21), this is true for humanity, this is true for the individual human. How often have I slipped into that black hole?

Paul not only writes that we should be thankful to God for His goodness, but he also writes that he is thankful to God for others (Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:4) - how often do I tell others that I am thankful for them?

What would our churches be like if people expressed thankfulness for one another to one another as a way of life? What would our workplaces be like? What would our schools be like? Our neighborhoods? Our families? Our marriages?

Consider that you may be the only person who expresses thankfulness to a retail employee or to a service representative who helps you via the phone or internet. You may be the only person who thanks a coworker or someone serving in your church. If you supervise people at work, do you thank them on a regular basis for what they do - do they know you are thankful for them?

How many marriages have we seen in which spouses fail to express thanksgiving for one another; how many marriages engage in constant criticism and then wonder why things are bad in the relationship?

Thanksgiving is a fundamental expression of a healthy life, for it recognizes that we have nothing that has not been given to us - no matter what our egos may tell us. We have achieved nothing that has not been provided to us, at the very least in seminal form. The breaths we take have been given to us, the beat of our hearts, the light by which we see.

Can it really be that we can live a day without giving thanks to our Creator? Can it be that we can live with a spouse and not give “thanks” for him or for her? How can it happen that we can work with others who contribute to our lives and not tell them that we are thankful for them?

Even in our most excruciating times and circumstances we can give thanks to the God who created us and loves us...for He has made us for eternity and He, Himself, has suffered for us in depths and dimensions that we cannot penetrate. Whatever the abyss of our sorrow, whatever the pain of our shattered soul, He has been there before us and beyond us and desires to walk with us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Thanksgiving should be our way of life in Christ, we ought to be “always giving thanks for all things  in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father,” (Ephesians 5:20).

Am I living a life of thanksgiving? What am I taking for granted? Whom am I taking for granted? God? Others?

“Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” Psalm 136:1.