Today I heard a British celebrity on TV expressing her envy of Americans for having a holiday that is completely dedicated to the celebration of food. While I cannot question the intentions behind her misinformed attempts at a compliment, I found her comments offensive nonetheless. Hello! Thanksgiving isn’t about celebrating food! It’s about the planned, calculated, premeditated expression of gratitude to a kind and generous God who has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing the the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). And – as if that weren’t enough – he has blessed us materially far beyond what we deserve.
And yet it’s not hard to imagine where an idea like hers would come from. Like Christmas and Easter before her, Thanksgiving has become superficial and material. We’ve become jaded by the kind provision of God. Today Thanksgiving is more about tradition, football and food than it is about a day devoted to the expression of heartfelt, genuine gratitude for the countless blessings that we Americans enjoy.
The irony here is that what Thanksgiving has become in the eyes of so many is born out of thanklessness. That’s right. It’s a lack of thanksgiving that has made Thanksgiving what it is. We take for granted things like family, food, and even football that we grumpily watch over leftover green bean casserole.
If we were properly thankful, we’d not only reclaim a holiday that was born out of the Pilgrims’ gratitude for a bountiful harvest, but we could actually feast with greater happiness and celebrate the goodness of God appropriately for who He is and all He has done.
But more than this, I get goosebumps when I imagine what impact a generation of thankful Christians could have in this world. A thankful Christian is not a complainer. He is pleasant to be around and is hospitable. And he heartily enjoys his countless blessings, often because his gratitude comes from an awareness of what he deserves. His joy is supernatural and looks different from the circumstantial happiness that so commonly characterizes the world.
People don’t act like this naturally. Especially privileged Americans. And I don’t want to be like that. I want to be thankful and heartily celebratory when thanking God for what He has given to me and my family. And in that spirit of thanksgiving, I’ll have and extra slice of pumpkin pie piled high with whipped cream as I commemorate with loved ones the kind provision of God.
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