Thanksgiving & Gratitude

I read somewhere recently that Thanksgiving is the favorite holiday of a majority of people in America.  With Halloween growing in the costumes, candy, and excessive marketing and Christmas continuing to be more about stress, parties, presents, and going, going, going...  Is it any surprise that this midweek holiday where we are supposed to do nothing but rest, eat, and relax is peoples most enjoyable holiday of the year?  (I know we had a blast Thursdday with my sister in town and the food was AMAZING for sure.)

But even this idea of Thanksgiving can miss the mark if we forget its origin along with the true power in Thanksgiving...GRATITUDE.  Thanksgiving began in a colony of people in the fall of 1621.  Ironically, this colony had just lost almost half of their original 102 community to sickness, during their first year in their new land.  Think about that, having lost dear friends and family members, enduring a brutal winter with little to no protection from the elements, they still saw through all of their hardship to see the providential hand of God and took time to celebrate and thank God for His goodness to them.

If you have not read the story of the original Thanksgiving recently...you know the version where God and all things spiritual are not "cut out", you should.  When reading it, you will see an amazing providential God who in the midst of great suffering and loss, still intimately loved and cared for a community of people who loved and worshiped Him no matter what hardship came their way.

This is the power of gratitude.  Gratitude does not focus on that which we do not have or wish we did, for we could always want something more or identify something we do not have.  Rather, gratitude is a spirit of grace that exists in the heart of a person who lives each day with a winsomeness derived from their awareness that life is good and that "every good and perfect gift is from above...from the Father of heavenly lights." (James 1:17)

I desire to be a grateful person who does not overlook the life, family, health, and most importantly the saving faith that God has given.  I hope your Thanksgiving provided you a sincere moment to reflect and give thanks to God as well.  May we as followers of Jesus be marked by a spirit of gratitude in this world, whatever may come our way.