Many people have traditions around Thanksgiving to help them count their blessings. Some families take time at the dinner table to express specific things they are thankful for. Others retreat to quiet places to muse on all the good that has come to them. Many folks gather around living rooms or in churches the night before Thanksgiving to sing songs of gratitude. It's actually pretty awesome that our culture does this each year.
I'm guessing that many of you reading this are planning on making your own extra effort this week to be thankful. Let me encourage you in this for a moment. Usually when we attempt to be thankful we think of temporal things. "Thanks God for my house. Thanks for the new jacket. Thanks for my job. Thanks for friends and family. Thanks for good health." We should always be thankful for everything, but I want to encourage you to go deeper. For some of us who have lost loved ones, are suffering physically, are being pressed financially, or are facing complicated unpleasant circumstances we must look deeper.
The things at the top of our list should be those things that do not change. "Thank you God for your everlasting love for me (1 John 3). Thank you that you have made a way back to God (Titus 3). Thank you that you don't treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103). Thank you that we are welcome to come before you when we need mercy (Hebrews 4). Thank you that one day all injustice and sorrow will be washed away and you will establish a new city of peace (Rev 21). Thank you that our sins are wiped out completely by the blood of Christ (1 John 1). Thank you that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8)."
Let's set our minds on these eternal unshakable realities so that our thankfulness transcends beyond merely what we seem to have in this life.