The Gospel Coalition

(My friend Paul Manuel wrote this last year at this time. Reading it today reminded me of God’s goodness. I hope this helps you the way it helped me.)

Thanksgiving is next week and I (like most people I know) am really looking forward to it–the break from normal work/school routines, the time with family and friends, the football, and (of course) the food. Thanksgiving is an annual occasion for us as a nation to feel and express gratitude–a wonderfully cathartic duty. Even for those who will spend Thanksgiving away from loved ones (separated by war or death), it is good (and good for us) to give thanks. Therapists and celebrities have jumped on the thanksgiving band-wagon. Oprah Winfrey’s encouragement to people to keep a gratitude journal is a good example. Having a gratitude attitude promotes health and healing.

But is just giving thanks enough? Can thanks be given without someone to thank? To say that general gratitude is sufficient is like saying that generic affection is adequate. We cannot truly know what love is without a lover. In the same way, we cannot truly be thankful without giving thanks to  someone. In Keep a Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot responded to our drift from the original purpose of Thanksgiving:

Those who call Thanksgiving “Turkey Day,” I suppose, take some such view as this: Unless we have Someone to thank and something to thank Him for, what’s the point of using a name that calls up pictures of religious people in funny hats and Indians bringing corn and squash?

Christians, I hope, focus on something other than a roasted bird. We do have Someone to thank and a long list of things to thank Him for, but sometimes we limit our thanksgiving merely to things that look good to us. As our faith in the character of God grows deeper we see that heavenly light is shed on everything–even on suffering–so that we are enabled to thank Him for things we would never have thought of before. The apostle Paul, for example, saw even suffering itself as a happiness (Colossians 1:24, NEB).

Elisabeth Elliot goes on to address what she sees as the culprit that stifles thanksgiving, namely the spirit of greed–the greed of doing, being, and having. As we grow more greedy, our gratitude diminishes. Our wants become demands that grow into entitlements. Why should we give thanks for what we deserved to get in the first place?

There is a remedy for this horrid cycle. It is to return to God and praising him for his gifts. We need to recognize them, acknowledge their source and return thanks. This doesn’t diminish our enjoyment of the good things in life. Rather it fulfills our enjoyment. It brings the enjoyment to its climax. George MacDonald, literary mentor to C. S. Lewis, wrote this about finding God in gifts:

No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best: therefore many things that God would gladly give us, things even that we need because we are, must wait until we ask for them, that we may know whence they come: when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things.

Where I found Truth, there I found my God, the Truth itself, which since I learned, I have not forgotten…. Too late I loved You, O Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved You! And behold, You were within, and I abroad, and there I searched for You… You called, and shouted, and burst my deafness. You flashed, shone, and scattered my blindness. You breathed sweet aromas, and I drew in breath and pant for You. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.