Thanksgiving Changes Lives
The day before Thanksgiving, an elderly man in Phoenix called his son in New York and said, “I hate to ruin your holiday, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are getting a divorce. Forty-five years of misery is enough. We’re sick of each other, and so you call your sister in Chicago and let her know.”
Frantic, the son called his sister who exploded on the phone. “Like heck they’re getting a divorce,” she shouted. “I’ll take care of this.” She called Phoenix immediately and said to her father, “You are not getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing. Do you hear me?” The man hung up the phone and turned to his wife and said, “Okay, honey. The kids are coming for Thanksgiving and paying for their flights.”
In a couple of weeks, most will be gathering with family and friends and hopefully doing more than eating a meal and watching football. The Thanksgiving holiday gives us a good opportunity to transform our lives from griping and dissatisfaction to lives of joyful gratitude in spite of the fact that the official Christmas shopping season begins the next day.
What Thanksgiving does is helps us to turn the corner and become grateful people, which is what God desires.
“A thankful spirit is one of the key distinguishing marks of a Christian. It sets us apart from the world, it makes us different.” (Alan Perkins)
Psalm 118 starts out with these words. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” (Psalm 118:1 NKJV)
The Benefits of a Grateful Spirit
Thinking about the question of why we need to be thankful, here are a couple of reasons that I see.
1. It Increases Personal Happiness
Most of us think happiness is determined by our circumstances. We’ve been taught that our happiness is somehow dependent on how well things are going. But our happiness is actually determined by our attitude. It’s about how we see things.
And the Apostle Paul wrote this from prison. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4 NKJV)
Paul was happy and filled with joy despite being in prison, because he learned to thank God in everything.
A young woman wrote her mother from college. “Dear Mom. Sorry I haven’t written sooner. My arm got broken along with my left leg when I jumped from the second floor of my dormitory when we had the fire. We were lucky because a young service station attendant saw the fire and called the Fire Department. They were there in minutes. I was in the hospital for a couple of days. Paul, the service station attendant came to see me every day. And because it was taking so long to get our dormitory livable again, I moved in with him. He has been so nice. I must admit, however, that I am pregnant. Paul and I plan on getting married just as soon as he can get a divorce. I hope things are fine at home. I’m doing fine and will write more when I get the chance. Love, Susie.
P.S. “Mom, none of this is true. But I did get a ‘C’ in Sociology and flunked Chemistry. I just wanted you to receive this news in its “proper perspective!”
Happiness is really determined by our perspective of life and not by our circumstances. If we learn to be grateful people despite circumstances, that is what will improve our happiness and joy.
2. It Improves Our Witness for Jesus
Having a spirit of thankfulness will make us better witnesses for Christ. What is sad is that Christians are some of the most negative people in the world. We act like we have been baptized in vinegar, not in the Holy Spirit. Is it any wonder people don’t want to have anything to do with church?
But when we are thankful, and filled with joy, we will attract the lost with this spirit of gratitude, because the world is depressingly dark and ungrateful. Yet, if we can learn to be thankful, we will attract them because we have something they desperately want and need.
The Apostle Peter said, “Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world.” (1 Peter 2:12 NLT)
Therefore, living a life of thankfulness will attract the lost.
3. It Enhances Our Relationships.
There is one thing I noticed about some married couples. After a while many of them become ungrateful and unappreciative of their spouses. And over time they take each other for granted.
Somebody described the first few years of marriage this way.
· The first year they say to their spouse, “You don’t look good. You should go to the hospital. I’ve already arranged it. I know the food is bad there, but we are going to have meals catered in.”
· The second year they say, “You don’t look so good. I’ve called the doctor. We’re set up to see him tomorrow. Right now, go and lay down and I will take care of everything.
· The third year they say, “You know, you’re not looking so hot. When you are done feeding the kids and doing the chores, you ought to lay down.”
· And the fourth year they say, “Will you quit walking around here and barking like seal. You’re going to give me your cold.”
There’s an old adage that says, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” But it doesn’t have to be. Instead, we need to cultivate that attitude of gratitude and begin to thank God for our spouses, because nobody else would put up with us. Think about it.
Husbands imagine how much your marriage would improve if you showed some appreciation and tell her how thankful you are. You might give her a heart attack.
And wives, just think about how much your marriage would improve if you told your husband how much you appreciate him once and a while. He may be more willing to do the dishes. There’s always an upside.
Just imagine how much better our church relationships would be if we expressed our thanks for each other; instead of picking at each other’s faults. Instead, let’s take the biblical stance of forgiveness and gratitude.
In fact, the Apostle Paul began most of his letters with appreciation. Take his letter to the church in Rome. He said, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.” (Romans 1:8 NKJV)
And he does the same in his letters to Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossi.
Paul let the people know how thankful he was for them. Imagine how much better our church and relationships would be if we expressed our thanks for each other.
4. It Solidifies Our Relationship with God
While I listed this last, it really is the number one benefit of them all. The Bible says that God in two places. He lives in heaven and in a humble and grateful heart.
“For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isaiah 57:15 NKJV)
And seeing this, I love what the writer of Hebrew says about how we should respond.
“Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe.” (Hebrews 12:28 NLT)
And while we have a need to be thankful, to whom are we directing our thanks? There is only one person to whom our thankfulness should be directed toward, and that is God, because He is the source of it all.
Harriet Martineau was an atheist. One morning she and a Christian friend stepped out into a beautiful fall morning. She saw the sun peeking through the haze, and the frost on the meadow, and the brightly colored leaves making their way to the ground, and she was filled with the beauty of it all saying, “I am so thankful. I’m just so grateful for it all.”
And her Christian friend then asked, “Grateful to whom?”
There is something inside us that needs to give thanks to God. And when we spend time giving thanks to God for all we have, we’ll feel closer to Him.
Paul wrote, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV)
Ways to Develop Thanksgiving in Our Lives
A. Remember Everything Comes From God
We need to acknowledge that everything we have is God’s and not ours. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” When we do this, it reminds us that it’s a privilege that God has loaned us everything we have.
“What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7b NIV)
Everything we have is on loan from God. Therefore, let’s thank Him.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17 NKJV)
B. Avoid Complaining
We need to be thankful, and in that process avoid complaining.
Dr. Dale Robbins writes, “I used to think people complained because they had a lot of problems. But I have come to realize that they have problems because they complain. Complaining doesn’t change anything or make situations better. It amplifies frustration, spreads discontent and discord, and can invoke an invitation for the devil to cause havoc with our lives.”
Complaining only makes things worse.
Paul said, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” (Philippians 2:14-15 NKJV)
Simply put, complaining is the enemy of thanksgiving. The two cannot co-exist in the same heart. So, I challenge all of us to stop complaining. When we feel like complaining, instead of filing our complaint with the complaint department, file a praise instead. It will change your life.
C. Develop Thankfulness
We are to daily give thanks, not just once a year at Thanksgiving, if we want to be thankful people. In other words, we need to discipline ourselves to find something every day to be thankful for and express our thanks to God.
We are told to be filled with the Holy Spirit, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:19-20)
The key word is “always”. We are to give thanks always.
There’s an old hymn that goes like this, “When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”
Sometimes I counsel people who are depressed that before they go to bed to write down those things that happened in which they were grateful and thankful for.
If they couldn’t think of any, which is usually the case when were in the middle of a heavy crisis, I tell them to remind themselves about the air they breathe, or better yet, about Jesus’s sacrifice upon the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
And the reason we’re to count our blessings before we go to sleep is that we won’t have all the negative junk invading our thoughts and dreams.
And so, I think we need to start praying for God to forgive us of our complaining spirit, and instead, we are to be thanking Him ‘always’ for all that He has given.
Conclusion
Before we end our time together, I’d like to give you a list of questions we might want to ask ourselves to see just how thankful and grateful we truly are.
· Do we tend to talk more about our blessings or our disappointments?
· Are we complainers, always grumbling and finding fault with our circumstances, always dissatisfied and wanting more, or are we content with what we have?
· Do we find it easier to count our blessings or to count our afflictions?
· Do we express thanks to others when they help us, or do we just take it for granted?
· Would others say we are thankful?
There was a gal that I read about. Her name was Lois Stahling
When Lois was in the prime of her life, she had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. She was mentally alert, but she couldn’t walk or do a lot of the other normal activities. She lived in a convalescent home, and she only got out once a week to go to church.
One day when the pastor went to pick her up, he found it hard to get her into his compact car. In fact, it was almost impossible if it wasn’t for her “slide-board.” It was a fiberglass board that fit under her legs and allowed her to slide from the wheelchair into the car. It was nothing fancy, just an inexpensive piece of fiberglass. One day, Lois pulled the pastor aside and said, “You know what I thank God for everyday? I am thankful for my slide-board. Because then I can come to church.”
Here’s a person who has every reason to be angry and bitter about her circumstances, and every reason to shake her fist at God. But instead, she is thankful for the little blessings she has, even her slide-board. Lois Stahling was counting her blessings.
I think it’s time we readjust our thinking and perspective and thank God for what we have.
As we are now getting ready for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks, I know I wanted to talk about thanksgiving, but not as a holiday, but as a part of what we’ve been called as Christians to do, and that is to always give thanks.
I’d like to end with the verse we looked at earlier.
“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV)
But as I was going through this and looking at this topic, I realized how much this fits into our vision and our most recent series on getting energized to engage. Giving thanks energizes us.
But it goes beyond this and elevates our relationship with God and with others. It takes it to the next level. In other words, this is next level stuff.
