Thanksgiving

This week, most Americans will 'give thanks' as an act of civic custom. And while the initial act of giving thanks over 2 centuries ago had the divine as its object, today, many who give thanks simply feel thankful without directing their thanks to anything, or any One, in particular. Thanksgiving is the great American holiday precisely because it is a holiday that can be celebrated by everyone in any way one chooses. It can be religious or secular, selfless or selfish, and even accommodates carnivores and vegetarians alike these days. Thanksgiving, while ostensibly being about good communal times with family and friends, has largely given way to being the pinnacle of pluralism and individualistic preference. There is nothing more American than being able to express generic thanks without any point of reference for our thanks to which one has to commit.

As a good American, I celebrate Thanksgiving and enjoy it immensely. Why? Because as a good Christian, I give thanks to the God of all blessings. I give thanks to God the way David does in 1 Chronicles 16. Psalms 100, 107, 118 and 136 are all psalms of thanks to the God of every good and great thing. Repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus himself gives thanks to God for loaves of bread and fishes, acknowledging that even seemingly ordinary and common provisions for sustaining life emanate from a loving God who makes unceasing provision for his creation. Paul continues this practice in Acts 27.35 & 1 Cor 11.24. Conversely, Paul cites a lack of thanks to God as a characteristic of those who are foolish and depraved (Rom 1.21). Put simply, Paul says we should thank God for absolutely everything (Eph 5.20, Col 3.17).

Properly 'giving thanks', therefore, has two basic properties. First, it is directed to the One who ultimately deserves it because he provides all the reasons and gifts that legitimize our desire to give thanks. Second, giving thanks is not something we do one day out of the year. God does not limit his grace and provision to one day a year. Therefore, we should not hold back our gratitude and thankfulness to the one day of the year that our culture has decided we should collectively give thanks. We should be thanking God daily, hourly, waking minute by waking minute. How else are we supposed to truly thank God for everything? To make this aspect of Thanksgiving a daily event is to commit ourselves to ever deepening our appreciation for God and going further in bringing glory to him than we will ever do otherwise.

Happy Thanksgiving!