Giving Thanks ... to whom? ... for what?

My family and I have had the fun privilege of introducing many people to the holiday of Thanksgiving in South America, North Africa, and Central Europe. The whole turkey, of course, is that central character that fascinates everyone (including my Uzbeki and Russian friend pictured here). It was always a great opportunity to speak about God, celebrate his goodness, and share that with those who don’t know Him.

Now that we are back in the US, I have found that two foundational assumptions behind the word Thanksgiving are often ignored:
1. We are thankful TO someone.
2. We are thankful for SOMETHING.

Psychologists (even the unbelieving ones) would almost all agree that being thankful is very important to someone’s mental health. It pulls our gaze away from the gap of unfulfilled desires and instead focuses us clearly on the gain of all we have. Wealthy people with a million dollar net worth can be miserable if they aren’t thankful. Yet those with a negative net worth can be happy when they look around them and see all that they have been blessed with. I love the power of thankfulness and I need more of it!

But real thankfulness has a PERSON to whom we are thankful. Thanking our lucky stars only makes one nervous that fortunes may turn against them. Mother Nature is just as fickle. Truly, satisfying and lasting thankfulness comes when we are thankful to our Father who is in heaven. He blesses us out of the abundance of his love for us. His love is not fickle like the breeze of luck and nature. Even in the hardest of times He is caring for us. The cross of Christ guaranteed his love for us.

This Thanksgiving let’s challenge ourselves, Christian, to speak of these two questions with our friends and family who don’t know the Lord. Let me suggest two simple questions:
1. When you give thanks this year, who do you give thanks to?

2. When you give thanks, what are you most thankful for?

Let those two questions lead you into discussion about who you are thankful to and what you are most thankful for: his redeeming love for you. Then lets discuss what God did with those discussions next week!