Happy Thanksgiving!

Let us all give thanks

I have much for which I am thankful - family, friend, those of you brave or bored enough to read my ramblings. A friend shared an article this morning that got me thinking about thankfulness. What is it? Is it just as matter of being happy for something in your life? Or is there something more to it?

Along these lines, I thought perhaps it would behoove us to look at a dictionary definition of “thanks”:

an expression of appreciation or gratitude or an acknowledgment of services or favours given

There is something that should stand out to us in this definition - thanks is offered in response to “services or favours given.” That these things are given necessarily implies a giver. After reading this, I decided to go one step further and look up “thanksgiving”:

the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

Ah, that's the ticket! God is the giver! While many may say they are “thankful” for what they have, the “thanksgiving” is often expressed as a general “thankfulness” lacking an object at which it is directed. This kind of thanks is more just a happiness that something is “had” (whether something we own or someone or some event in our lives), but it is not truly thankfulness, it is not thanks directed at the One from whom all things flow.

Let us not forget to thank God on this Thanksgiving, as our founding fathers gave thanks to Him for the bounty they received from the land and the sea. I will give thanks to God for you - my readers - and I will give thanks for my family and friends, and I will give thanks simply because He is God and I understand that all I have is by His hand.

I wish you all a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!