Like Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter, Thanksgiving offers an important rhythm in our year to practice something essential to human happiness - in Thanksgiving's case, gratitude!
Thanksgiving: Our Response to God's Extravagant Grace
The author, Os Guinness, quotes a famous artist who said, "The worst moment in the world for an atheist is when she is genuinely thankful, but has nobody to thank." When your heart bursts with gratitude at the birth of one of your children or grandchildren, or you look at a gorgeous sunset, or you hold your spouse and you are so happy that you cry tears of joy, or you have a prayer miraculously answered - how horrible it would be to be filled with gratitude and have no one to whom to say "thank you." Christians have someone to say "thank you" to - Jesus Christ.
It is often said that for Christians salvation is all grace and obedience is all gratitude. My love for you, Jesus, is my grateful response to your love for me. I love you, Jesus. You have been so good to me. My tithe is my way for me to say thanks to you. Whenever you write a check and put it in the offering basket, whenever you serve in inconvenience, whenever you make the hard choice of showing kindness to someone who has treated you shabbily, you are saying, "Thank you, Jesus."
Michelangelo once did a pencil drawing of the Pieta for a friend. With the dead body of Jesus supported by angels at her feet, Mary doesn't cradle her son as in Michelangelo's other renderings. In the pencil drawing of the Pieta, Mary raises her hands and her eyes are lifted towards heaven. On the vertical beam of the cross, Michelangelo inscribed a line from Dante's Paradise, which is the focus of the drawing. The line is this: No one thinks of how much blood it cost.
It is very rare that we kneel with our eyes turned upward to heaven and say:
I haven't said thank you recently for how much blood it cost for me to know you. I haven't said thank you recently for how much blood it cost for your church to exist. I haven't said thank you recently for how much blood it cost to forgive my many sins and to show me grace despite my frequent disobedience.
Gratitude - a recognition that we have nothing that we haven't received - will keep us as a large church from becoming full of ourselves. It is gratitude that will get our eyes off of our accomplishments and onto Christ's accomplishments. St. Augustine once said that the Christian life was supposed to be a Hallelujah from head to toe- the praise of God saturating our lives.
Thanksgiving: The Neglected Key to Joy
One of the biggest happiness boosters (this was discovered through a grant from the National Institute of Health) is through practicing gratitude. How do you practice gratitude?
One of the exercises that psychologists gave to people was a gratitude journal; taking time every day to write in a gratitude journal things for which they were thankful. What psychologists found was that if people took time to conscientiously count their blessings every day, life satisfaction markedly increased in just six weeks.
Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology, has tested similar practices at the University of Pennsylvania and in huge experiments that he's conducted over the Internet. Seligman believes that the single most effective way to turbo-charge our joy is to make what he calls a "gratitude visit." This means writing out a testimonial thanking a teacher, or a pastor, or a grandparent, or anyone to whom you owe a debt of gratitude. Then visit that person and read your letter of appreciation to him or her. Seligman said that the remarkable thing was that people were measurably happier a month after they paid a gratitude visit to the person to whom a debt of gratitude was owed. Saying thanks produces ongoing joy.
Seligman also recommends what he calls "three blessings," taking time each day to write down three things that went well that day (in other words, counting your blessings), taking time to journal what's going well and intentionally savoring good moments by journaling them. Why not consider creating a gratitude journal, paying a gratitude visit, or savoring good things in your life by journaling them?
Thanksgiving: The Need to Practice Becoming a Thankful Person
Thankfulness is something we have to practice. It is like learning how to play the piano. Just as anyone who wishes to play piano well has to practice scales over and over again, thanksgiving must be practiced continually. One thing our family does is to go around the table at Thanksgiving and share at least one thing for which we are grateful. Saying "thank you" does not come naturally to us self-centered people, who believe that all good things are ours by way of entitlement; who are naturally greedy; or who are forgetful. You know you have practiced the scales of thankfulness long enough when you can play the really difficult melody of "thankfulness in all situations" (Philippians 4.11-12). You have become a skilled giver of thanks when, instead of grumbling and complaining, instead of sinking into self-pity and depression, you are able to give thanks in all circumstances!