What do toilet paper, long bike rides down sun-dappled autumn roads, Diet Coke, and Justin Bieber have in common?
Answer: #Thanksgiving, internet style. I’ve seen expressions of appreciation for each show up on Facebook and Twitter this month. I’ve certainly populated the social media universe myself with mentions of the gifts I’m grateful for, among them family, friends, health, food, and employment. Other expressions of gratitude I’ve seen have hit similar themes.
I’ve seen many other gratitude lists that are simply inventories of coveted, then acquired consumer products: big-screen TVs, cute new sweaters, Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Thanks, then, is reduced to consuming or buying stuff. Ironically, the kinds of things that are on these shopping lists are hardwired into a deeper frustration that things aren’t the way they are supposed to be in our society. Both the Tea Party and Occupy movements are grassroots responses to our floundering economy. We are in a down market for true gratitude if giving thanks is primarily linked to our purchasing power.
Gratitude is big business in our culture. Oprah regularly urged her viewers to keep a gratitude journal. With nearly 1,000 listings for “gratitude journals” on Amazon.com, it would appear that there are bucks to be made from the counting of blessings. Researchers tell us that giving thanks benefits the one doing the thanking. I can celebrate the positive effects that gratitude has in our lives. And I can’t deny that this month’s expressions of thanksgiving add a splash of warm ‘n fuzzy sentiment to the atmosphere around the internet and in our culture, even those I don’t fully understand. (See Bieber, above.)
But thanksgiving, by definition, is supposed to be about someone other than the one doing the thanking. Author Ann Voskamp’s 1000 Gifts: Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are hit bestseller lists this year with a poetic, biblically anchored message about gratitude’s power to transform both the way we live our lives and the way we relate to God. (See Her.meneutics’ tworeviews of the book.) Voskamp’s book has inspired tens of thousands of readers to offer their thanks to the Giver for the ordinary moments of their days, a welcome redirect from Oprah’s “Say thank you to the universe!” message.
I may sound a bit Scrooge-like, but I confess that I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with Twinkie-sweet emotion that strips away purpose from gratitude. In my estimation, gratitude has morphed into a feel-good trending topic instead of what it really is according to Scripture: a costly expression of worship.
The Bible presents a remarkably unsentimental portrait of gratitude. The emotions we may experience are wonderful byproducts of our obedience and worship. The pages of Scripture remove us from the visceral smells and sounds of animal sacrifice, but those offerings were a bleating, bleeding centerpiece of expressed thanksgiving in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Paul connects the sacrificial giving by the congregation at Corinth to the expressions of gratitude by the recipients of these financial gifts. Thanksgiving is a costly act.
That cost is perhaps seen most poignantly in Job’s stripped-bare words after he had lost everything, when he didn’t have anything to offer except himself: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:20).
True biblical gratitude has God as its object. He cherishes the offerings of thanks that flow from our hearts toward him, because these words flow out of relationship. The thanks we offer to him is always a response to the blessing of what he gives to us without reservation – himself.
Rev. Dr. Craig Barnes‘s words have helped me connect with the real meaning of thanksgiving this year:
Being thankful is not telling God you appreciate the fact that your life is not in shambles. If that is the basis of your gratitude, you are on slippery ground. Every day of your life you face the possibility that a blessing in your life may be taken away. But blessings are only signs of God’s love. The real blessing, of course, is the love itself. Whenever we get too attached to the sign, we lose our grasp on the God who gave it to us. Churches are filled with widows who can explain this to you. We are not ultimately grateful that we are still holding our blessings. We are grateful that we are held by God even when the blessings are slipping through our fingers.
This Thanksgiving, I will thank God for his abundant blessings. I will offer myself to him, extending my empty hands in prayer while acknowledging the losses I’ve experienced this year. And then I will sit in silence for a while, grateful to be held by God.
