Now that Thanksgiving Day is past we are all ready to get back to the routine of our habitual lives. The things we did before, we now go back to and the thoughts of real Thanksgiving seems to fade. I’m afraid that we all remember the feeling of being too full of food instead of feeling the deep thankfulness that we should. Now we are obsessed with the idea that we need to be on a diet.
Isn’t it amazing that we forget thankfulness so quickly? It is very possible for us to become say-ers and not do-ers of thanks-giving. When we say “THANK YOU” is there any feeling from the heart that we really are thankful? I remember telling someone “thank you,” just the other day. It was a shallow “thank you” and was only intended to be polite. There was no real feeling of being thankful. I was made painfully aware of my own shallowness in this thankfulness department.I wonder if we’ve let the shallowness of thanksgiving creep into our spiritual life as well. We began to see that thankfulness is as fleeting as that look in the mirror this morning. Scripture tells about this: James 1:23-24
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. NIV
Is this scripture really talking about, among other things, THANKSGIVING? Are we going away from Thanksgiving Day and forgetting to be thankful?I met a missionary once who poured water from the faucet into a glass and then bowed his head and gave thanks. It was not a shallow thankfulness like we always do at meal time, it was a prayer that caused the eyes to well up with tears. As he gave thanks you could almost see his heart pumping out the real, genuine thankfulness. That sight has stayed with me for over 50 years. You see, he was a missionary to Haiti.
The missionary told us of the difficulty to get clean fresh water in Haiti.If I am thankful for only the good things that happen in my life then I am shallow, indeed! The scripture says to -give thanks in all circumstances!
Have you ever been truly thankful in the down time, in the discouraging time, in the time of loneliness, in the time of depression, in the time of family turmoil? Or when you are misunderstood, or made fun of, or when the money doesn’t stretch far enough, when some dear one passes away. I have an empty bread box of “thank-you’s,” when it comes to the really heavy problems. How then do we give thanks in ALL circumstances? It would help if we could understand that God is not Santa Clause. When things go good we can be thankful and when trouble comes, God seems to go into hiding, or on another assignment. In any case we feel that he is not available when we need Him most. Why do we feel this way? Has he not promised to be with us until the end of the age?
I really do want to be thankful in ALL circumstances. But, I find that the thankfulness in bad times comes only if I have practiced heartfelt deep thankfulness long before the bad times come! I do that by reminding myself that Jesus suffered far more for me than I will ever suffer for Him. I have not shed my blood because of Him. He did for me! Anything we go through, Jesus went through before us and he was still thankful to His Heavenly Father!
Start by thanking God for the drink of water. How about being thankful that we have a sound mind and are able to get out of bed in the morning? Thank Him for finding the lost keys. Thank Him that we can speak, and hopefully we can be kind in that speaking. Thank Him for the day, the air, the moisture, the birds, the trees, the ability to do the work that you do. Be thankful for the people in your lives that make you strong and those who you make strong by your encouragement. Be thankful that the world is made up, chiefly of, other people, not just “me and my problems.”
Is this not the beginning of faith? We may not feel thankful in the bad times but we can BE thankful. We must get our feelings out of the way and let our hearts flow with thankfulness to HIM! My salvation is by faith and my thankfulness is also by faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Even in the bad times!
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
