When a national day of Thanksgiving was established on the
fourth Thursday in November, it was not because the fourth Thursday in
November was a particularly thankful day. It was intentionally chosen
precisely because of its arbitrariness to remind us to say "thanks" on a
daily basis for the bounties God has heaped upon our lives.
Thanksgiving is one of those times when we are supposed to
stop and be thankful for what we have.
Yet, if we were honest with ourselves, most of us would
admit that instead of thinking about what we have, we focus much more on
what we lack. We look at what is missing, rather than identify and give
thanks for what is already there.
Yet, in order to give thanks, we need to train our eyes to
see in a different way. The truth is that whatever it is that we are looking
for is what we will see
And most of us have been trained to see what is missing, to
see what is not there, rather than focus on what we have.
Remember the story of the loaves and fishes? When faced with
feeding over 5,000 people, Jesus’ question to the disciples is what do you
have? What do you already have? The disciples are focused on what they need
that they do not have—and Jesus redirects their vision to what they already
have—and with what they have they feed everyone and there are leftovers!
Instead of focusing on what we lack, we are asked to
consider what it is that we already have—and when we look at what we already
have, we are surprised to discover a rich number of blessings. We have to
retrain our eyes and the way we see.
The truth is that when we look at our lives, we find a great
many blessings. When we open our eyes to what we have, we first see God’s
generosity in Jesus and suddenly the possibility of a new day and a new way
of living and giving opens before us.
The following poem comes from a website called
www.gratefulness.org
A THOUSAND THINGS WENT RIGHT TODAY!
The sun came up!
The flowers bloomed!
A Thousand Things Went Right Today!
My elbow bent
I breathed
Yes, A Thousand Things Went Right Today!
The car started and hummed with ease
The door opened flawlessly
Sure, a few things went amiss, awry
And some days more than others…
Yet, Thousands of Things are Going So Well…
The birds sang
A friend smiled
A Thousand Things Went Right Today!
I am grateful
By Ilan Shamir and Kris Baldwin who are co-founders of Your
True Nature, Inc. (www.YourTrueNature.com), creating products and programs
to help make the world a better place for all of us. The passages above are
excerpted from their scrapbook journal, A Thousand Things Went Right
Today (Fort Collins, CO: Better World Press, 2002).
This week as you gather around your Thanksgiving
table—remember to give thanks for what you have, and to pay attention to the
million little things that mean so much.
And while you focus on these things, remember most
especially to give thanks for God’s amazing love that in Jesus Christ, comes
to each of us, blesses us and calls us to love and service.
That in itself is so much to be thankful for.
