Thanksgiving centers around generosity. Our faith reminds us God has given us all that we need. The perfect peace of Christ is ours. Abundant life. Forgiveness of sins. Hope. Joy. Love. It’s all given to us because God. And God is generous.
So, we give thanks. We say, “Thank you, Lord.” We sing and pray our thanks with the church. There are many words that help us express the thanks we want to give to God. And those words breed deeper thanksgiving within us. They help us live gratefully, which is the best way to acknowledge God’s generosity. The Lord doesn’t hold back blessings from us. So, how could we ever hold back from giving thanks and praise?
It isn’t too much to make much of even the little gifts of God. Doing so keeps us humble and thankful. We can easily take for granted the small things in life if we don’t connect them to God’s generosity. We might even think we deserve everything we get. Worse, we could believe the lie we deserve more. That leads us away from thanksgiving. And, since thanksgiving centers around generosity, it leads us away from generosity.
Since God has been and will be generous with us, we, in turn, become generous people. You can’t out give God, but you can have a lot of fun and do a lot of good trying. Of course, giving to God means giving to others. Generosity and giving, then, aren’t about budgeting. They’re about thanksgiving.
We just took a full circle around the table: Thanksgiving; generosity; gratefulness; giving. They’re all part of the feast of giving thanks to God. If you take one out, something’s missing from the others. It isn’t pecan pie without pecans. It may be pie, which is good, but it’s not complete.
Thanksgiving without the rest is good. “Thank you, Lord,” is an awesome prayer. Our communion with God and our life with others, though, become all they were meant to be when we include the rest.
Stay blessed…john