By Landon Coleman
Pastor, Immanuel
Today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. If you’re a typical American, your pants are a bit tighter and your bank account is a bit lighter. We certainly know how to make a big deal of the Thanksgiving holiday, but I wonder … Are we genuinely thankful people? Are our lives actually marked by gratitude?
I’m afraid that when most of us “give thanks” we do it in strange ways and for all the wrong reasons. Consider some of the following observations about the ways we “give thanks.”
>> I know people who get very spiritual when a crisis pops up in their life. These people suddenly become intentional about prayer, and some of them begin bartering with God. Often times, as soon as the crisis is resolved, these people quickly go back to “normal life” and forget to show genuine gratitude to God.
>> I know other people who live lives that are relatively free of major crises. We all have our moments, to be sure, but these folks just seem to have it all together, and everything seems to go their way. Work is ok. Money is ok. Health is ok. Family is ok. And yet, these people rarely give thanks for their blessings.
>> Our society has set aside one day a year for the express purpose of Thanksgiving. And yet, it seems that we’ve turned this day of gratitude into a day of self-indulgence. We eat too much of our favorite foods. We watch our favorite teams play our favorite sport. And we engage in our true national pastime — shopping.
>> Some of us realize that setting aside one day a year for “thanksgiving” is woefully inadequate. Some people decide to dedicate the entire month of November to giving thanks, but then they spend the entire month of November posting their thankfulness on social media to accumulate likes and comments.
Rather than segregating gratitude to a single day or a single month, we ought to strive to be thankful people every day of the year. Psalm 100 is a great model of what this kind of gratitude might look like in our lives. This psalm is affectionately known as “Old One-Hundredth,” and it is the only psalm written for the express purpose of “giving thanks.”
Several aspects of Psalm 100 are worth noting. First, a life of gratitude is expressed in joyful worship (100:1). Second, a life of gratitude is lived with a desire to experience God’s presence (100:2). Third, a life of gratitude is centered on a true knowledge of the true God (100:3). Fourth, a life of gratitude is manifested in actually saying “thanks” to God (100:4). Fifth, a life of gratitude is focused on God, the Giver of all good gifts, rather than on the gifts he gives (100:5).
While I’m glad to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I pray that my life would be marked by the kind of gratitude and thanksgiving on display in Psalm 100.
