It is only a couple of days until American Thanksgiving, and like so many I am getting ready for a feast. I have so much to be grateful for and I look forward to sharing this with friends. My thanksgiving begins with these words from Psalm 92 and I ask you to begin this day by offering your praises and thanksgivings to God too.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to the Most High.
2 It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning,
your faithfulness in the evening,
What is your response?
Repeat these verses out loud several times and sit quietly for five minutes allowing God to bring to mind those things that you have to be grateful for. Write them down. Offer them as prayers of thanksgiving to God. Repeat the exercise each day during this week. Don’t worry if the same thought comes to mind each day. At the end of the week read back over your list. What are the recurring theme? What else could you do to stir gratitude in your life?
Unfortunately even in our thanks and gratitude I am aware that we live in the tension of God’s kingdom now and not yet. The glimpses of God’s kingdom that fill us with awe and wonder, that bring us to our knees with shouts of praise and gratitude are unfortunately just that, glimpses of a world that we desperately long for but do not yet see fully realized. Our thanks and praise are uttered in the shadow of pain and suffering. School shootings in Florida, and continuing deaths from ebola in Africa devastate me. The ongoing turmoil in Syria and other parts of the Middle East oppress my soul. The hottest global season on record and growing concerns about climate change and environmental degradation, degrade my spirit.
It is good to praise and thank God but our celebrations at thanksgiving, our gratitude and praise to God for the many blessings we see in our lives should not blind us to the suffering of others. In fact it should inspire us with the desire to see others rejoice and celebrate in the same ways that we can.
What is your response?
In the midst of your thanksgiving celebration, what are you doing to bring thanksgiving and gratitude into the lives of those who suffer, are oppressed or marginalized?