Does Thankfulness Come Easy?
Holidays | November 20, 2024 | By: Carolyn Meyers
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving next week, it’s helpful to remember where it all began. This special day started as a humble harvest feast established by the early Pilgrims in 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts. After a grueling winter and with the help of the Indigenous people, the Pilgrims survived their first year in the New World and gathered to thank God for their bountiful harvest and His provision.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday of November, as a national holiday, urging Americans to offer thanks to God for His blessings even in a divided nation. Throughout American history, Thanksgiving has been marked by periods of prayer and fasting in times of hardship and by expressions of gratitude in times of plenty.
Over the years, our culture has come to associate Thanksgiving with delicious food, family gatherings, and watching football on a full stomach. While those things are delightful, as Christ-followers, Thanksgiving is so much more. It’s a time to pause, remember God’s redemptive work and provision for us, and consider our own hearts of gratitude. Where are we on the thankfulness continuum?
Does thankfulness come easy? With difficulties and tragedies surrounding us in our personal lives, in our nation, and in our world, how easy is it for us to “count it all joy… when you meet trials of various kinds”?
I dare say, it isn’t easy at all! Sometimes the hits keep coming, the trials intensify, and relief seems like a pipe dream. Yet, even in the hardest of times, thankfulness is a choice. Joy is a choice. And we are the ones who get to choose it.
Even in the hardest of times, thankfulness is a choice. Joy is a choice.
Many writers in Scripture speak to the importance of thankfulness; but the Apostle Paul seems to consistently bring it up. Here is a man who was not only radically saved but also faced unbelievable tragedies, fears, and near-death experiences—all while tasked to share the gospel in hostile situations and encourage the early church.
Peek with me for a moment into the window of his life as he describes his trials in 2 Corinthians 11:25-27, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; A night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” Paul faced overwhelming trials; yet he implored us to be thankful.
Could it be that thankfulness doesn’t come easy? That we need constant reminders to take our eyes off our difficulties and raise a glass to all those amazing things God is doing? Could it be that we easily forget God’s amazing grace, His infinite love, His transcending peace, His incredible mercy? I think so.
During this season of Thanksgiving and beyond, what if in the midst of our difficulties, painful circumstances, and intense struggles, we consider them fleeting and temporary. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
What if we disciplined ourselves to keep “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Gratefulness would then come swiftly as we put in perspective all that God has done and is doing. As a result, Paul’s mindset of thankfulness would become ours as well:
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
“Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:19-20)
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:17)
Here’s the challenge for us this week and beyond as we recognize God’s presence and work in our lives: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful” (Colossians 3:15).
Will you take on the challenge to have a mindset of thankfulness?
Carolyn Meyers
Central Special Ministries Director
This article is part of our Holidays series that features some of the special days commemorated in our nation. Our hope is that these articles offer a chance for us to reflect on God’s Word and put on the mind of Christ as we celebrate these holidays.
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