Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. What a great Holiday! People may gripe about the busyness and commercialism that often pervades the Christmas season, but I haven’t heard too many people complain about Thanksgiving. (Let’s not talk about Black Friday!) 

When I reflect on Thanksgiving Days growing up, memories come to mind of the Holiday I never minded repeating from year to year: 

Running the Gobble Wobble 5k with friends to grow my appetite, coming home to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, sitting down with family to eat my own body weight in comfort food, and spending the rest of the day watching football, and often, the first Christmas movie of the season. 

I love Thanksgiving. I love it for the traditions and for the opportunity it presents us to stop, enjoy time with people who mean so much to us, and reflect with gratitude on the good things in our lives. 

For followers of Jesus, Thanksgiving isn’t about any less than that, but I do think it can be about even more. 

The reality we see in scripture is that God Himself is the source of all good things. 

From the very beginning of the world, God looked at all that He had made and said, “This is very good!” (Genesis 1:3) 

We celebrate Thanksgiving because there is a good God who is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. 

Although God’s good creation has been marred by sin, even our willful disobedience doesn’t stop His goodness. He refuses to let sin have the final word. 

In His goodness, God sent Jesus Christ to make a way for any person to be restored to Him, by confessing our need and looking to Him in faith. When we put our hope in Jesus, we can be sure that our good future with God is guaranteed. Through Him, we can look forward with eager anticipation to the day Christ will come again to renew ALL things (Revelation 21:3-5)! That will be the ultimate Holiday! 

Until then, let’s live with a spirit of Thanksgiving. Let’s remember that all of life - every moment - is an opportunity to celebrate God’s grace. 

Author GK Chesterton wrote, 

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

That’s what Thanksgiving is all about. Thanksgiving is a posture toward life that views all things through the lens of God’s goodness and grace. 

No matter what we face in life or death, we have reason to rejoice in Jesus. 

The God who made us also sees us and knows us. He loves us so much that He sent His own son to pay the ultimate cost to secure our good future. 

Even in our moments of disappointment and discouragement we have reason to rejoice. 

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. – James 1:17 

We have received the ultimate blessings this world has offered through Christ - eternal ones than can never be taken away. 

Our good God is deserving of all gratitude. Let’s celebrate His grace this Thanksgiving and every day after!