As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach I know it’s easy to be pulled into all the planning details and to wind up dreading the month, just the opposite of what God intends. So this year I’m going to actively focus on three aspects of these special days which are not always on the table with the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pies.
The first is Gratitude. I don’t see it much. Rather than regularly recounting our innumerable blessings, many of us appear to be worried, slightly angry, or downright upset about one or several issues in our personal or corporate lives, and/or in the state of our nation.
The truth is that every breath we and our loved ones take is a gift.
Gratitude starts, for me, with daily thanksgiving that the God who created the universe also, somehow, knows me personally and cares for me, despite my failures, sins and imperfections. He made a path for my eternal salvation through a relationship with His perfect son, my older brother. How incredible is that?
His incomparable and incomprehensible gift should put me on my knees every day, responding with repentance, humility and praise.
If I have genuine gratitude for being redeemed for eternity, it’s hard for me to feel like a victim, or to be entitled to anything other than what He
provides, or to be angry with others.
By the way, we don’t have to be theologians to understand gratitude.
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
But we do have to practice it. And that’s what I hope to increase in my daily life this month.
My friend and teacher, Ken Boa, believes that Gratitude is a spiritual discipline. It is a choice we make, and because it has a short shelf life, we cannot leave it to spontaneity. Ken counsels a daily prayer of Gratitude before our feet hit the floor in the morning. And then during the day he uses regular events, like each time he stops at a traffic light, to lift up a specific thanksgiving. It can be life changing. Or at least attitude changing! Please try it with me.
My second focus is on Whom we are thanking. It is one thing to have a general, pleasant sense of thanksgiving and gratitude. That’s fine as far as it goes.
But I know Who is the Author and Creator of all life, and Who holds me in the palm of His hand. So I want to be certain this year not just to be thankful, but to intentionally thank Him for all His blessings, particularly for our relationships. Some of those relationships will hopefully be with us soon at one or both of these celebrations. Others are farther away, and some are already with Him. And you who are reading this post are a great blessing to us. Thank you.
And, by the way, the Founders of this nation were not celebrating a general feeling of thanks or a mystical force when they established these two national holidays. They were specifically thanking and praising the God of the Old and New Testaments—in whose image we were made–for His bountiful gifts to the nation and her people.
So I want to encourage all of us, particularly those of us with a few years and hopefully a little wisdom, as we bow our heads in prayer, or talk with family and friends, that we be intentional in reminding everyone that our blessings come not from Darwin, the Ecosystem, the Cosmos, or the government, but from the one living, true, personal God; and that the daily habit of Gratitude for His blessings is the best way to celebrate Thanksgiving all year long.
My third focus is gratitude to the one true God who created all of us for exactly what the arrival of Jesus on earth meant two thousand years ago: Amazing Grace.
The first Christmas was God’s intervention in human events with His eternal plan for our salvation–easily the most important event in history. The Light came into the darkness. Christmas led to Christ’s death and resurrection–the once-for-all atonement for our sins. Incredible. It will be surpassed only by Christ’s second coming.
But what would it be like today if God had not intervened, or if Christ had declined to do his Father’s will to take the place of the likes of us? 
What if there were no Savior, no undeserved grace, no salvation, and no future with God?
Clearly the answers would fill several volumes. On a global level, how would history have been written? Fewer wars? More wars? Science? Kingdoms and nations? Would there be an America? Probably not like anything we would recognize.
And on a human level, what if there were no Christmas and no Christ to know about? No teachings to counterbalance the world’s ways. No gospels. No epistles. No hope for eternal salvation.
And what if God had not drawn me to Him? Thinking how I acted before Christ’s Light shone into my life during one transformational weekend at Cursillo over forty years ago, my behavior today would likely be totally selfish and destructive, to myself and to those around me.
So I’m focused here on the more personal/faith level when I ask myself how my own life would be if I did not know Christ and his teaching, and had not experienced His grace.
As Ken Boa says, the very concept of Grace proves that Christianity is like no other religion, and must be divinely inspired, because left to ourselves, humans would never think of or even consider Grace. We’re hard-wired to want justice, a balancing of the scales, and punishment for wrongdoing.
And every other faith tradition in some way also depends on works—on us doing something, usually over and over. ONLY Christianity says: You can’t do it. It would be impossible for you. But the good news is that God has already done it for you, paying your debt through the death and resurrection of His Son. All you have to do is accept this free gift and believe.
“Grace is uniquely Christian because it is the unmerited favor of God given freely to sinners through Jesus Christ. Unlike other worldviews that emphasize earning favor or enlightenment through works, Christianity teaches that salvation is a gift. Grace is at the heart of the gospel—God initiates, forgives and transforms us, not because of our merit, because of His love.”—Ken Boa’s Faith Assistant at www.kenboa.org.
At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of God’s Son to begin the earthly portion of God’s plan to provide that incredible gift of undeserved eternal salvation. Thank You for Amazing Grace.
This year I hope to celebrate these two events not just as annual rituals which require planning, but, by practicing daily, even hourly, gratitude, I will thank the Father for His gift to spend eternity praising Him and experiencing His joy with other believers in Heaven. Incredible. Humanly impossible. Only by His grace.
So with humility and a renewed perspective across each day of the coming month, I invite you to join me in giving Thanksgiving for Christmas.
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This post borrows from two earlier posts I first penned in 2011 and 2015. Happily, my core beliefs have not changed over the years—only deepened.
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In book news, there is now a really good, digitally recorded Audio version of On The Edge available on Spotify. If you enjoy audio books, or have friends who consume books this way, I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think.
Plus don’t forget the free E-pub version of Ten Lies and Ten Truths (Third Edition) available at this link.
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