Is Your Thanks Giving?

OK, let's be honest – we've got this giving thing pretty well messed up.

At this point in history, the last 45 days of each year have become a season marked by the twin positives of gratitude and giving. In and of themselves, these two actions are wonderful, moving people to do all kinds of things for other people – we work the line at soup kitchens, we support toy drives, we send cards to friends and loved ones far and near, we let the other person have that parking space, we say Thank You when someone holds the door for us at the 7-Eleven. And a lot of this is genuine!

Where we've messed it up horribly, though, is in the commercialization of the season. Over the years, Madison Avenue has morphed what was once a season of heartfelt giving and gratitude into a season of binge buying and guilt giving. You know the feeling – the mad rush to have everything anybody ever thought they wanted on the Thanksgiving table; and don’t forget the seemingly endless searching and shopping for gifts that will wind up forgotten or tossed out lot sooner than we might have imagined while we were in the checkout line.

So, as we gather around Thanksgiving tables, let’s consider a couple of things that may not have been foremost in our minds in years gone by: first, giving is thanks – paying forward our blessings is ultimate gratitude for having received them in the first place. The bible does say “You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” (Acts 20:35b) Secondly, thanks is giving – acknowledging our gratitude is a gift to whoever gave to us! In the end, though, it’s all gratitude to the Lord, because nothing was made that He didn’t make. Have a happy day of thanks, everybody, and…

“Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good” (Psalm 106:1a)