Why should I be Thankful? Thanksgiving Sunday, 2008
You Know You Overdid Thanksgiving When....
Paramedics bring in the Jaws of Life to pry you out of the EZ-Boy.
The "Gravy Boat" your wife set out was a real 12’ boat!
You receive a Sumo Wrestler application in your e-mail.
Tuesday, you set off 3 earthquake seismographs on your morning jog.
Pricking your finger for cholesterol screening only yielded brown gravy.
A guest quotes a Biblical passage from "The Feeding of the 5000."
That rash on your stomach turns out to be steering wheel burn.
Representatives from the Butterball Hall of Fame called twice.
You consider gluttony your patriotic duty.
Your arms are too short to reach the keyboard & delete this.
After-Thanksgiving Poem
I ate too much turkey, I ate too much corn, I ate too much pudding and pie.
I’m stuffed up with muffins and too much stuffin’; I’m probably going to die.
I piled up my plate and I ate and I ate.
But I wish I had known when to stop,
For I’m so crammed with yams, sauces, gravies, and jams
That my buttons are starting to pop!
I’m full of tomatoes and french-fried potatoes
My stomach is swollen and sore,
But there’s still some dessert so I guess it won’t hurt if I eat just a little bit more!
Food…it’s what many people feel thanksgiving is all about. After all, try to find a parking spot at some of the grocery stores lately, and you get the idea that food supplies are falling as fast as the stock market is these days. People are jockeying for position to pick up a turkey or a ham, if there are any left. They are looking for cranberry sauce in a can because we don’t can our own cranberries anymore. They’re grabbing decorations and table cloths and napkins in fall colours, and paper fold-out turkeys. Pumpkins are being used as centre pieces on the table.
Families are phoning and e-mailing and face-booking and blogging and begging trying to find out who is coming to dinner at who’s house on Monday or Saturday or Sunday. You were there last year, this year it’s our turn to have you…Who’s bringing potatoes, have we got enough chairs, who’s making dessert, did we forget the kids at home? Dessert, can’t have too many desserts…can we?
So we pile in the car, travel somewhere to eat, and then we over-eat. Then we ask ourselves WHY we did, and promise ourselves, and everyone else, that we’ll never do that again…until the next Thanksgiving meal, which usually is the next day, because we have to eat thanksgiving left-overs for the next WEEK!
Whew! That’s a lot of food fuss isn’t it? And in the end, all we end up with is a lot of dirty dishes, a turkey carcass, and sleeping men on the couches in front of a football game that none of them are really watching. Is that Thanksgiving?
I’ve been reading a TON of scriptures this week about thanksgiving and being thankful.
There are over 100 references to thanks and thanksgiving in the Bible. These few that I want to share with you today, though, seem to sum up what, why, when, and how we ought to give thanks.
I found the first reference to THANKS in the Old Testament laws as written by Moses in
Leviticus 7:11-13 (New International Version).
The Fellowship Offering
11 " ’These are the regulations for the fellowship offering [a] a person may present to the LORD :
12 " ’If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. 13 Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast.
1) I NEED TO EXPRESS MY THANKSGIVING TO GOD. Sometimes the hardest thing for people to do is say ‘thank you’. We try to teach our kids to do it. ‘What do you say to the nice lady son?’ ‘thaaannnk yooouuu’. Not the most sincere necessarily, but it’s cute. The point we try to instil in our kids though, is to BE thankful. When you’re given something, you say thanks. We have been given SO much by God. We’re breathing aren’t we? Aren’t we?! He gave us life. He gave us this earth. He gave us each other. And He gave us salvation through Jesus Christ. We need to thank Him for all this, and more. Have we? Have we really, truly, honestly, and whole-heartedly THANKED God for all that He has blessed us with? If not, we need to. And there are MANY ways to express our thanks to God. We can write a letter, write a poem, paint a picture, share a story, dance with joy, or just be still before the Lord.
One of my favourite ways to give thanks to God is through song. When I feel that NEED to give thanks to God, I will often reach for my guitar and sing one of the songs like we sing here on Sunday morning, or I’ll turn up the radio on Praise 106.5 or 105.3 and sing along or just listen to the music, or if those aren’t around, I can just sing or hum a favourite song.
There is a certain power in speaking or singing out our praise and thanksgiving to God. So that’s my 2nd point
2) I NEED TO SPEAK THANKS TO GOD. Listen to these texts from the bible:
Psalm 69:30
I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
Psalm 95:1-3
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
Psalm 100:3-5
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 147:7
Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make music to our God on the harp.
Music is a POWERFUL communication tool. When you hear a song, sometimes just once or twice, the words and rhythms get into your head; sometimes you can’t get them out, and you find yourself repeating them over and over. What songs are in our heads? What songs are in our hearts? What do we listen to? What do we find ourselves humming as we walk along the street, or in a mall? Are they songs of thanks and praise to God or do we have songs of a more ‘worldly’ nature stuck in our head all the time? I’m not saying it’s wrong to listen to something other than Christian music, but I am advocating that we should listen to what we hear on the radio or the CD’s we buy and carefully weigh if they are really worth listening to.
If we have a song in our heart that gives thanks to God, speak it out, sing it out. The bible says in Psalm 98 – make a joyful noise to the Lord. It doesn’t have to be Canadian Idol quality…just a quality praise of thanks to God, flat, sharp, squeaky, raspy, or whatever…just praise Him!
Why BE thankful? What do we have to be thankful for? Life is rough isn’t it? It’s not a bed of roses all the time. We have difficulties, diseases, dizzying schedules, and disastrous dilemmas. Why be thankful?
1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
3) GOD IS GOOD. THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO BE THANKFUL. God is the one thing in this universe that is always good. He is consistent, unchanging, unwavering, holy, perfect, righteous, loving, tender, merciful, gracious, and true. If God wasn’t good, if God didn’t care about us, He would just wipe us out because we’ve broken His laws; we’ve given Him plenty of reason to be ticked off at us. But He is good, good to you and good to me. He lets us live our lives freely. He lets us make our own decisions. He lets us be successful, He lets us make mistakes. He lets us choose whether we return love to Him or not. He lets us choose to live our lives for ourselves, or for Him. He gives us absolute freedom to do what we want with our lives, and that’s good! God never forces Himself on us; He never makes us do anything. We choose. Like Brendan is choosing to follow God by being baptized today. That’s Brendan’s choice. God’s not making him do it. His parents aren’t making him do it. I am not making him do it. He has chosen to follow God’s command, and I believe God will honour him for his obedience. Has God been good to you? If so, then thank Him for His goodness to you.
2 more scriptures, 2 more thoughts.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-19
16Be joyful always;
17pray continually;
18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
These are hard verses, difficult commands, to follow at all times. Is it easy to always be joyful? Can we pray 24/7? Can we be thankful in spite of whatever we go through? The simple, yet hard answer, is yes we can. The joy of the Lord is not a silly grin on our face, it is the joy of knowing God loves us and we have a relationship with the Creator of the universe. Praying continually is simply being in constant communication with God, asking about how we should use our time and talent for Him, consulting His word on all of life’s issues. Just like a good marriage, a good relationship with God is filled with good communication. And giving thanks in all circumstances, yes. Not FOR all circumstances, but IN them. To be thankful that God is with us in and through ANYTHING we might be going through, good or bad. He never leaves us, He never forsakes us. He is always with us. That is something to thank Him for.
And finally:
Colossians 3:17
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.
What are you doing this afternoon? What are you doing tomorrow? How about next year? What are we doing with our lives? Are we living them for God, or for ourselves. Are we just trying to get ahead, or are we more concerned about those around us? God has gifted each and every one of us with abilities, talents, skills and gifts to serve others. The choice to do so, to use those things for God and not our own good, is ours. The choice to be thankful or selfish is up to each of us. The choice to follow God’s voice or just listen to the world is something we have to do daily. Being a Christian is more than a one-time decision, a one-time prayer, a once-a-week at church relationship. It is a daily walk with the Lord. It’s a moment by moment, growing, sincere friendship with the God of the universe. I am thankful for that above all else. What are you thankful for?
