Giving Thanks With a Whole Heart

Thanksgiving is an American Holiday that was set aside to give thanks for all that God has provided. As Christians we are commanded to give thanks but sincere thanksgiving implies an understanding that God has provided and we are satisfied. . .  pleased. . . amazed at His generous provision. Are we?

Those pilgrims who gathered to give thanks were not thanking God for giving them what they deserved and definitely not for giving them the desires of their hearts. They had travelled to a foreign country in search of spiritual freedom.  They had suffered months of sickness and death on an ocean of uncertainty. Worn and weary they stepped off the boat into a harsh wilderness.

 In spite of their hard work to build homes and plant gardens, without any understanding of either the weather or growing patterns, they were starving to death. God allowed their hardships in England and in America because He had set a plan in place that would touch eternity.

He sent them the most unlikely help, friendly locals on whose land they were trespassing. These refugees were welcomed and taught to cultivate and grow the very produce for which their hearts were moved to give thanks. He didn’t just give them spiritual freedom but brought them to share the truth so that the American Indians might experience that freedom as well.

When it comes to freedom of worship the worst prison is the prison of the ungrateful heart. True thankfulness can’t cohabitate with greed. It will not grow beside the feelings that we may have what we need but there is so much more we want, and we can’t really be happy till we get it. We have a whole generation that believes Thanksgiving is more about overeating and shopping than giving thanks.

Ture worship has to be more than just lip service. Unless we intentionally teach ourselves and our children the humility that must accompany our words of thanks we are in danger of producing only a Pharisaic Thanksgiving. When speaking to the Pharisees who were much more concerned about the rituals than the heart Jesus replied “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’ Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition.” _{Mark 7:6-8 The Net Bible}

So how does one go about changing our thanks from just lip service to humble gratefulness? It is a continual process of checking the affections of our heart. It will mean learning to give our desires boundaries. It will mean reminding ourselves the difference between knowing and thankfully receiving what God provides verses striving to get things by our own power that we are convinced we can’t live without.