Practicing Thanksgiving

The week of Thanksgiving can often be a flurry and frenzy of activities. Traveling near and far to visit family. Trips to the market to get supplies. Another trip when you forgot that one ingredient. Thanksgiving can be a blur causing hosts to promise, "Someone else is hosting next year!" Until next year comes.

Perhaps though, the spirit of thankfulness is alluding to you. The price of the Thanksgiving meal has increased. Travel expenses are more this year than last. The news headlines of the recent past have created a wedge between some in your family. Despite disgruntled sentiments, we must remind ourselves why giving thanks is important.

Being thankful is countercultural. There is no question that we can easily not be thankful. The 24-hour news cycle, social media and everyday conversation thrive on being disgruntled. Absent intervention, the world will always bring the worst out of you.

God, however, can bring out the best in us (Romans 12:2.) Being thankful does not naively ignore the issues surrounding us but instead chooses to look for reasons for gratitude. Rather than being squeezed into the cultural wide and low road of complaining, faith encourages us to take the straight, narrow, and difficult path of gratitude.

Being thankful is an attitude preceded by action. Actions which foster a demeanor of gratitude. First Corinthians 13:4 declares that love is kind. The feelings of love, acceptance, being known, and knowing others are accompanied by demonstrating decency, illustrating compassion, and showing acts of kindness.

Actions are the kindling to the bonfire of thankfulness. If you are given a gaze of suspicion when saying "Hello" to someone you don't know, keep saying hello. If actions once deemed gallant are called out as demeaning, keep finding ways to demonstrate honor. Actions of honor and kindness may go out of style but they are never out of fashion.

Being thankful is only ever fully experienced when it is expressed. You can feel thankful but will not be thankful unless you involve another. No matter the joy you feel, it is always diminished if isolated to your own heart. Joy, gratitude and thankfulness are all emotions that can only fully be experienced when shared.

We have many reasons to be disgruntled. Yet we only need one to be thankful. A single heart of thankfulness paired with hands of gratitude overshadow thousands of malcontents.