It is Thanksgiving weekend…a Holiday that I think we get right.
Not all Canadian Holidays are created equal. I love every day off I get, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something about taking a day off to be grateful that so resonates with our faith, and is good for our soul.
Of course we are smart enough to know that being grateful needs to be an every day thing.
RW Emerson once said, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously…”
Some of us don’t care how we got this holiday, only that we have it. (like the other stat holidays we enjoy)
– Indigenous peoples paused for thanksgiving well before Euro settlers every arrived
– It became common in the 1870s and official in 1957
– It’s always been connected to and associated with being grateful for what we received…harvested.
The question we’d like to get at is: why do so many of us have a hard time being grateful?
– Because we compare what we have verses what we don’t have.
– We start asking…Why me? Why not me? Why them?
– We compare incomes, stuff, toys, experiences, and feel like we get the raw end of the deal.
Think about this: We all know someone who is rich and unhappy, and someone who is far from rich, yet very happy. And we’ve figured out that it’s directly connected to how grateful or ungrateful they are.
A few places in scripture we can go to that challenges us on the importance of being grateful.
Phil 4:11-13
I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Colossians 4:2
Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.
Heb 13:5-6
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
Thomas Merton said something that directly addresses these verses:
“If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.”
Let’s look at some helpful tips or ways that we can become more grateful or develop the posture of gratefulness:
9 habits/steps of Grateful People
Spend time with loved ones
Know the value of the little things
Volunteer
Get moving (be active)
Intentionally choose gratitude
Count your blessings / Not what you don’t have
Embrace humility / Embrace the struggle
Open your eyes to those with less
Find Gratitude in every situation
Gratefulness is a posture…a privilege…a position we take. We choose it. We live it. We sit in the seat that says, “I’m grateful for what I have, for who is in my life, for a God who is with me everywhere that I go.
“We are hopeful, only to the degree that we are grateful”
So let’s be grateful!!!