A Table For Thanksgiving
Boring at worst, predictable at best - no? - to muse on the importance of giving thanks as we approach a day sharing a similar appellation.
I’d like to, though, travel down perhaps the last avenue of this idea not beaten to death - blodgened by turkey leg or some other unfortunate holiday appropriate demise.
Gratitude has become a commercial property in the last few years. A gratitude journal, mug, book, pen, affirmation, calendar - you name it, you can likely procure it at your local bullseye adorned establishment. (no shade, of course. You will find no Target slander here - I’m there too much for that.)
It’s funny to think that our obsession with thankfulness has actually siphoned the power from it. The sentiment has become a bit trite, overdone in the direction of ineffectiveness.
Why? Because we have not taken the time to thoughtfully set a table for a thanks giving feast.
So let me begin by asking, what are you thankful for? Why? To whom are you thankful? How thankful are you? Is there any evidence in your life that your answers to the preceding questions are true?
….
We often try to begin in the middle - being thankful for thankfulness sake.
Thankfulness in its true form is not a starting point. Before we can thank, we must have a solid foundation of the who and why of it all. If I am thankful for my life, which is wonderful, but tether it to no source, the outcome may be a fleeting fill of happiness - which is why it seems like thankfulness has done its job.
This method, however, is akin to if, on the day subsequent to celebration, you make the obligatory ne plus ultra leftover piled plate and then endeavor to eat it while standing up holding the goods on a Great Value paper plate. It’s a flimsy business.
One must set a solid place for any kind of substantial sustenance to sit.
It is deeper than throwing up a quick, though necessary prayer over the unsolicited potato salad cousin Kiesha did not have the familial clearance to make. Or writing a daily list with a pretty pen in the morning.
It’s an unavoidable pause on the way from right belief to right practice. Orthodoxy elicits gratitude which begats orthopraxy. A holy recipe, so to speak.
Perhaps one of the most infamous praise breaks in the Bible comes mid-Ephesians. As Paul lays out for us the building blocks of our faith, reveals the mysteries revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, and tells us definitively that Christ has brought us from death to life, from far to near, from aimless to predestined and from darkness to light - preceding him laying out what we must now do in response to this glorious Gospel news - he thanks in praise.
It is almost as if he cannot help himself - it is a natural progression: I believe.
And in light of what I believe I am thankful. And the only proper thanks is to worship by way of practice. Worshiping in spirit and truth is the outcome of a deep thankfulness for what the Spirit has revealed to us about the Truth.
Our life, then, our choices, behaviors, speech, posts, and responses in every instance reflect what we are thankful for and by Whom that “what” has come. And so if your daily, mundane actions do not grow in holiness then it may be time to unpack if you’ve become lackadaisical in thankfulness or if, perhaps, the roots of gratitude never actually grew deep in the right soil.
Thankfulness is the language of saints. It replaces Gentile ways with godliness and gentleness - and love, joy, peace, patience, kindless, faithfulness and self-control. Of course.
And knowing how saints ought to sound is protection from foolishness - the ability to distinguish palatable nonsense from profitable thinking.
When it’s lacking, we grow callus and cold. And should you hypothesize that it is, in fact, “not that deep” that would be to ignore that being ungrateful is of equal weight with a proverbial cornucopia of quite unsavory things.
Thankfulness, then, is not an aesthetic bathed in the right sunlight - filter expertly selected. It is a spiritual necessity.
On its own, it is an attempt to make oneself feel feelings of gratitude. Feeling is nice, but holds no weight in the fight against the enemy of apathy towards that which is holy. Thankfulness in response to the Truth is power, peace and a path forward. Thankfulness is a good God’s good will for your life.
If thankfulness is the meal, right belief is the sturdy oak table on which it sits and right practice is how we go forward full of right things sitting heavy in our spirit, nourished for good works born of worship.
And so, I’ll ask again: what are you thankful for? Why? To whom are you thankful? How thankful are you? Is there any evidence in your life that the answers to the preceding questions are true?
If you struggle with specific and scriptural answers - let your holiday break be a time to marinate more than just the food that will fill your plate, but also the contents of your heart and its penchant, or lack thereof, for thanks. Set your table, first, and so you may truly indulge in giving thanks with a grateful heart.
Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us — to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
