Giving Thanks
What exactly does it mean to give thanks?
When the store clerk rings up your purchases, loads them in a bag, and puts the bags in your cart, you say “thank you”. And sometimes the clerk thanks you for coming in.
Is that it? Let’s dig deeper.
When you lose your wallet and it’s returned by the finder intact, nothing missing. What does that “thank you” sound like? A bit more heartfelt?
Or, how about when your child becomes ill, and the doctor tells you there’s a new medicine for that illness which has had good trial results. You say, do it—and it works! Your child is restored to full health with no recurrences. When you wring that blessed doctor’s hand and say “thank you, doctor!”, the tears flow and your heart almost bursts out of your chest. That scenario comes close, doesn’t it? Someone has done something for us that we could not do for ourselves.
But maybe there’s more . . .
The dictionary definition of “thanksgiving” goes like this: “grateful acknowledgement of benefits or favors, especially to God.” That word—especially—means something special, I think. You probably agree.
Our giving of thanks to folks who do good to us is important. But the ultimate landing place for our gratitude should be to the One who moved those folks to do good to us. And if we are moved by Him to do good to someone else, and they give us thanks for it, we should gently redirect their thanksgiving to the Giver of all good gifts.
Back in 2007, I was part of a medical mission team to Vietnam. That trip was an eye-opener for this small-town girl from the Pacific Northwest. Gratitude and thanksgiving oozed from the pores of the people we were there to help. Even though they had nothing in the way of material benefits, their smiles beamed in our direction would raise the sun in the eastern sky.
And the passionate thank yous we received brought tears to our eyes. In one instance, the simple act of helping an elderly woman to sit down in a chair gave way to her relative kissing my hands and trying to give me a multi-colored scarf she wore.
Many children were brought to the doctors who worked alongside us, and the gratitude shown by their parents was heart-wrenching to see.
When I arrived home, I remember the moment we pulled into the driveway, and I made my way inside our nothing-fancy home. It was like walking into a mansion.
Gratitude to God for all He has done for us and bestowed upon us should be part of our DNA, but all too often we focus on our don’t-haves instead of our do-haves.
This Thanksgiving, let’s elevate our thinking above our tables groaning with food. Let’s look at the faces of our loved ones, the warmth we enjoy, the ability to travel from here to there in a vehicle, and the gift of gathering with like-minded believers to worship.
Giving thanks shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s a simple matter if we are willing to look with different eyes.
