Thanksgiving

So, Thanksgiving is Thursday! I'm excited because it's our first Thanksgiving with our children. They asked for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, which we are happy to supply. We're going to eat too much turkey (minus my vegetarian self), potatoes, dressing, cranberries, vegetables, and pie. We're going to visit with a family friend for a few hours. We will have dessert with other friends later in the day. Sounds like a great Thanksgiving, right?

Well, yes, but is that the point of Thanksgiving? When I think back to the original purpose of Thanksgiving, it was both a real and necessary time. People were giving God thanks for providing basic food, shelter, and health - all things that many Americans now take for granted. While we think of Thanksgiving as one day out of the year, our ancestors probably were giving God thanks every single moment of every day. I would be too, if I had survived a cholera outbreak, freezing temperatures, and other obstacles.

I think that we need to recover that particular attitude. We need it on Thursday - to be grateful for all that we have been blessed with; but also, because we need it every day. God doesn't just pour out blessings one day a year - blessings are constant and abundant. Why shouldn't we give God thanks each day?

I often find myself drawn to the ancient practice of praying the psalms. The prayerbook of the Bible, the psalms really provide the reader with an opportunity to express their emotions before God. Many of the psalms are psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Perhaps, if we have trouble remembering to give God thanks on a daily basis, we can turn to those psalms as a means to discipline ourselves in the practice of thanking God.