What Has Happened to Thanksgiving?
Has it been lost forever?
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.
When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was the time we got together with my dad’s side of the family. I love my mom’s side of the family, but we saw most of them on a regular basis since most lived within a reasonable driving distance. But my most of my dad’s family lived twice as far away. Some in other states. Some all the way on the other side of the country.
So I didn’t get to see them nearly as often, and looked forward to our Thanksgiving gatherings.
And, of course, there’s the food. I’ve always been a “foodie,” and I am blessed to come from a family of very good cooks. You can kind of look at most of us and tell. You see, good cooks seem to gather good eaters around them. I always looked forward to the Thanksgiving spread. We had the traditional Thanksgiving foods. Turkey and dressing. Mashed potatoes. Turnip, mustard, and collard greens. And desserts. Oh! The desserts.
And football. My grandmother enjoyed football as much as any of us. She would get the other ladies to clear the table and do the dishes so that she could sit and watch the games with us on TV. And she knew the game well too. I always though it was cool that my grandmother knew football as well or better than most of my friends. Family, food, and football made Thanksgiving my favorite time of the year.
What Happened to Thanksgiving?
But our family hasn’t gotten together on Thanksgiving for the last three years. We’ve sadly had a lot of deaths in the family and many of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs that remain are not physically able. And too many in my generation and the one below fail to see the value of the family gathering. Maybe next year!
Our family situation seems to mirror a cultural trend as well. Thanksgiving is disappearing right before our eyes. Halloween is October 31st and Christmas decorations hit the shelves November 1st — sometimes sooner. I’ve seen outdoor Christmas light up for several days already. It’s as if Thanksgiving doesn’t even exist anymore.
The lack of family gathers and attention give to the day only reveals a culture that doesn’t value gratitude as much as it once did. Many people are negative and complain about what they don’t have or what is going wrong rather than being grateful for what they do have and what is going right. Our world is growing more negative by the day.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Paul warned Timothy that this would happen. In 2 Timothy 3:1-9, Paul described the kind of attitudes and actions that would make the “last days” difficult. Toward the beginning of the list, Paul mentions that people will be ungrateful. It comes right after “disobedient to parents” and right before “unholy.” Most of us would agree that the actions and attitudes listed there are unbecoming. Yet we ignore our thankfulness amnesia.
Why Is Thanksgiving Important?
In describing the sinful state of the world in his time, Paul wrote this to the Christians in the “New York” of his day - Rome.
For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. - Romans 1:21
Paul recognized two effects of a culture that chose to not honor God and not be thankful to Him. First, because of their ingratitude, they “became futile in their thinking.” When we fail to view life gratefully, we begin to think wrongly about ourselves, others, the things we have or don’t have, and the world as we know it. Ingratitude skews and corrupts our thinking like a virus corrupts a computer’s operating system.
Ingratitude also affects us spiritually. Paul said they did not honor God and their hearts were darkened. It’s hard to tell which is cause and which is effect, but ingratitude and a darkened heart go hand in hand. A darkened heart is not walking in the Light of Jesus. When we fail to be thankful, we forget what it means to be bought by and belong to Jesus. We lose sight of our spiritual blessings in the heavenly place. We ignore the truth that God causes all things to work together for good for those who are His.
So thanksgiving as a practice is vital in keeping our heart holy and our thinking clear. Continuing to downplay the “Day” will lead us to neglect the regular, daily attitude and practice of Thanksgiving.
How Can We Recapture Thanksgiving?
I am more concerned that we regularly display a thankful heart than that we eat a lot of turkey and enjoy a tryptophan coma one day a year. But I also realize that re-emphasizing Thanksgiving Day is a good start to restoring a thankful heart. So here are three suggestions for your Thanksgiving Day this year. (Actually these would be good for all 365 days of the year.)
1. Be Thankful FOR. Recognize God’s hand in surrounding you will awesome people and giving you good things. God has given you every thing that is good. Be specific in giving thanks. Imagine that tomorrow you will wake up and only have the people and things for which you gave thanks today. (James 1:17)
2. Be thankful IN. It is easy to let the difficult seasons of life get us down. But we need to remember that we have a good God who loves us and is all-powerful. He sovereignly uses all things for His glory and our good. (Romans 8:28-39)
3. Be thankful TO. Sometimes our giving thanks for things causes us to focus only on the gift and not the Giver. Then, when we don’t have the things we want to be thankful for, we despise the Giver. We call that “entitlement,” and it’s not good. Notice that in Psalm 100, the words God and Lord and the pronouns He, His, and Him are used 17 times in the three verses. I think that’s significant.
Let’s focus more on the Giver than the gifts. More on the Lord than our circumstances.
Have a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving. And let’s make it a habit! The thankfulness, not the eating!!!