Thankfully Thanksgiving

While Thanksgiving has come and gone, I, Sarah Beaton, thought why not write about being thankful and thanksgiving. We need to be thankful in our lives.

A few days ago, we celebrated Thanksgiving – in fact we made a big meal to celebrate this holiday. I remember when I was in high school, my parents had set up a “Thank You Box” that we had to write something for which we were thankful. I thought it was stupid. What crazy person was thankful when we had problems?

I look back on it now and I wish I had been more thankful and grateful for what the Lord had given me. But hindsight is always 20/20. Let’s unpack what we should be thankful for. Gratitude, thanks, Thanksgiving and thankful all appear in the Bible in different areas, different stories and different ways to express praise and gratitude.

We see in Luke 17:11-19 that 10 lepers came to Jesus. Jesus healed all 10 of them. How many came back to thank Jesus? ONE! ONE leper came back to Jesus to thank him. How did Jesus respond? Jesus wanted the other nine to also give thanks to God.

How many times do we walk around complaining? Many times, we say a laundry list of prayers and we do not give God enough thanksgiving and gratitude in our prayers. But when we read the Bible, we see that thankfulness is woven into every book of the Bible. The most common verse of thankfulness we think of or speak about is Psalm 100:4.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. (NKJV)

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. (NIV)

Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. (NLT)

Why is it that we need to be thankful? Why do we need to have gratitude? Jesus was thankful and expressed gratitude. In fact, we see it in different areas of the gospels. He was always thanking His Father in Heaven. Paul opens most of his letters with thanksgiving and gratitude to the churches he writes to. If Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament and Jesus gave thanks, maybe we should too?

But hey, what do I know! Well, I know that David throughout Psalms thanked God and praised Him. Even though David had never seen God and nor was he a priest who saw God, he would give thanks to God. Psalms is where we find most of the gratitude, thankful, thanksgiving and thank you verses in the Bible.

“Many times, we say a laundry list of prayers and we do not give God enough thanksgiving and gratitude in our prayers.”

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. - Psalm 63:3 (ESV)

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. – Psalm 9:1 (ESV)

Both chapters are written by David, and both chapters have a verse in it about praising God. Praise never eluded David, even when he was being chased by Saul. Praise, thanksgiving, thanks, thankfulness and gratitude are ways we give honor to God.

As we move on from celebrating Thanksgiving, exercise thankfulness not just over Thanksgiving, but also in the new year and the years to come. Let us give God the honor and the praise He is worthy of in the new year and the years to come. In fact, for the rest of your life. I challenge you to have your own “Thank You Box”, then ever so often review that for which you have given God praise, thanks and gratitude.

Have a nice day… See you soon