It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States -- a day, oddly enough (in a non-Christian nation), set aside to give thanks. It's odd because we deny God on the surface, but no one thinks of "Thanksgiving Day" as a day to give thanks to neighbors or family or whatever other earthly options we have. It's a day to give big thanks ... which is only reasonable if there is a Big Giver.
It's okay, though. Most Americans exult in Thanksgiving not because they seek to thank God, but because they like family and turkey. Oh, and you can drop the "family" part this year because it's outlawed in a lot of places due to the pandemic. So we love turkey. Oh, and a day off. Because, you see, at the core of our being we have an underlying problem -- we don't give thanks (Rom 1:21). Thanks is vital (1 Thess 5:18), but we tend not to be very good at it.
I think that we here in America have a particular problem with it. With our affluence and our sense of entitlement, it's hard to be grateful. It's hard to be grateful when your boss pays you what he (or she) owes you. "What 'grateful'? I had it coming." Unfortunately we've acquired a case of enlarged entitlement and we are owed everything. Like the kid who asks and receives every Christmas, we lose track of the fact that God's many gifts to us are gifts, not payment due. And, of course, we seem completely unable to give thanks for things we don't particularly like because, apparently, God is doing bad things (like allowing the wrong guy to get elected or letting a pandemic mess up our Thanksgiving or ...). "Grateful for that stuff? No way!"
If giving thanks in everything is the will of God for us (1 Thess 5:18), it is my prayer, "Dear Lord, for whatever we are about to receive make us truly grateful. Truly. Amen."
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