If you’ve been to a store lately, you know that the retail world quickly jumps from Halloween to Christmas. Thanksgiving is stuffed in a corner with the occasional pumpkin or cornucopia. Focus is on food, football, and the frantic need to start Christmas shopping.
I wonder if we really see Thanksgiving the way it was intended, or better yet, the way it could be.
The Pilgrims were grateful to God for helping them survive in a wild world they had never seen before. The emphasis being – they were grateful to God.
So often we “give thanks” to some nebulous source, as though we are speaking words to the wind. But if we are truly thankful – to whom are we giving thanks? To the cold and unknowable universe? To each other for acts of kindness? To ourselves?
If we don’t know the source of giving, the Giver of all things good, then why give thanks?
I think we miss the most important thing about this holiday if we fail to realize that thanksgiving is superficial if it only touches on the unknown. Yes, it is good to thank others for the things they do for us. But who do we thank for things that are granted to us that are beyond our control? Who do we thank for the sun that warms the earth? Who gets the gratitude for the rain that waters the plants that gives us food to eat? Who do we thank for the miracles that happen around us every day – of birth, of health, of protection from dangers unseen, of the ability to take another breath?
If there is no knowable God, or if the gods we worship are abstract ideas with no personal interest in our lives, what good are they? If they are like the ancient gods of the past who could be both good and evil, then true, awe-inspired thanksgiving is empty.
The Creator of all things, the God of the Bible, is knowable, personal, and in control of things we are not. He hears the prayers of those who call on Him, and He answers, whether we recognize Him or not. He searches the hearts and minds of men and women to see if any will seek Him. He waits patiently and loves unconditionally. He went to great lengths to show us His love, though we are often slow to see it.
To thank Him is not difficult once we can see beyond the food and football and frantic plans for the coming Christmas.
Thanksgiving can, if we accept it, help us realize just how much God has done for us when He sent us Jesus–
And that without Him, there is really nothing to be lastingly thankful for.
Selah~
