Thanksgiving - Christianity Today

ALL PRAISE TO GOD Let us, with a gladsome mind, Praise the Lord, for he is kind:

For his mercies aye endure, Ever faithful, ever sure.

Let us blaze his name abroad, For of gods he is the God:

He, with all-commanding might, Filled the new-made world with light:

All things living he doth feed, His full hand supplies their need:

He his chosen race did bless In the wasteful wilderness:

Let us then with gladsome mind Praise the Lord, for he is kind.

—John Milton, quoted in Gazing on Truth

MATTER OF THE HEART The heart must be alive with gracious gratitude, or the leaf cannot long be green with living holiness.

—C. H. Spurgeon in Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden

HIS HOUSE, OUR HOME There are a hundred touches of kindness that come to us every day to tell us that we are not orphans or outcasts upon the earth. Every trace of order, every gleam of beauty, every provision of bounty in the natural world, is an evidence that it is God’s house.

—Henry van Dyke in The Upward Path

IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS Taking [a] “servant” attitude of thankfulness in all of life’s circumstances will help you react as old Matthew Henry did when he was mugged. He wrote in his diary, “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

I wonder if I could be that thankful. Could you?

—Billy Graham in Unto the Hills

NO ROOM FOR CYNICISM A thankful heart cannot be cynical.

—A. W. Tozer in Signposts

THANKS THAT’S PERSONAL One Thanksgiving Day I was home alone in the evening. On my favorite radio program Bill Pearce, the host of “Night Sounds,” asked us to think of all the things for which we were thankful—our country, our families, home, work, and all the rest. Then he challenged us: “Have you ever stopped to be thankful just for yourself?” As he candidly shared his own struggles with this, I realized I had never really thanked God for all the work he had done in my creation. I was overcome as I thought of how God had made plans for my life long before I was born.

—Ingrid Trobisch in The Confident Woman

THE TRANSFORMED LIFE Thanksgiving —133; comes from above. It is the gift that we cannot fabricate for ourselves. It is to be received. It is freely offered and asks to be freely received. That is where the choice is! We can choose to let the stranger continue his journey and so remain a stranger. But we can also invite him into our inner lives, let him touch every part of our being and then transform our resentments into gratitude. We don’t have to do this. In fact, most people don’t. But as often as we make that choice, everything, even the most trivial things, become[s] new. Our little lives become great—part of the mysterious work of God’s salvation. Once that happens, nothing is accidental, casual, or futile any more. Even the most insignificant event speaks the language of faith, hope, and above all, love. That’s the Eucharistic life, the life in which everything becomes a way of saying “Thank you” to him who joined us on the road.

—Henri Nouwen in With Burning Hearts

THANKS FOR OTHERSGratitude is the praise we offer God: for teachers kind, benefactors never to be forgotten, for all who have advantaged me, by writings, sermons, converse, prayers, examples, for all these and all others which I know, which I know not, open, hidden, remembered, and forgotten.

—Lancelot Andrewes in Heirlooms

THANKLESS “VICTIMS” The careless soul receives the Father’s gifts as if it were a way things had of dropping into his hand —133; yet is he ever complaining, as if someone were accountable for the checks which meet him at every turn. For the good that comes to him, he gives no thanks—who is there to thank? At the disappointments that befall him he grumbles—there must be someone to blame!

—George MacDonald in Unspoken Sermons (Series Two)