How Thanksgiving Changes Us

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“He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?”

Romans 8:32

As a kid, I could never decide if my favorite holiday was Thanksgiving or Christmas. While I loved the toys, pretty lights, and my mom’s delicious frosted cookies on Christmas day, Thanksgiving is when family and friends unite around one my favorite things: food. I would sit in the kitchen as my mom and aunts cooked just so that I could smell the food and dream about the pecan pie and stuffing (I have always been a devoted “foodie”). Yet as I grew older and eventually started college, I found that the holidays and enjoyment of being with family became increasingly less present in my mind. Not because I was growing tired of the holidays, but because my mind was so consumed with responsibilities and deadlines. Thanksgiving is the time to study for finals and essays, and Christmas is just a few days after everything is turned in. For those who are working, it seems that work is at the forefront of their minds. When our lives are filled with rushing from one thing to the next, sleep deprivation, stressful assignments, piles of applications to fill, increasing responsibilities at work, and any other “fill in the blank,” it is easy to feel strained, mentally, physically, perhaps spiritually, or to give into self-pity. By the time Thanksgiving holiday comes around, it is hard to reflect on what we are thankful for and enjoy the fellowship of others when that application or task is being pushed in the back of our minds. While Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to gather with long-missed family and friends, perhaps it is not the only time we should reflect on what we are thankful for. In fact, the Bible presents thanksgiving less as a one-day-a-year holiday and more as a posture of our hearts for everyday life. Seeing God as He is and giving thanks for His abundant grace and blessings is the very thing we need to combat the exhaustion and stress that we combat in our busy (or dull) lives by taking our eyes off the world and seeking the things above.

The “Thanks” in Thanksgiving

This is not just a word used to describe a holiday, and it is much more than being thankful. There are actually two parts of meaning in the word. The “thanks” of thanksgiving is not just a blessing over the food before you dive in. We are told to “[give] thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20, emphasis added). We give thanks for everything we have because it is all the work of our holy and perfect God: “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise?” (Psalm 106:1-2, emphasis added). Out of His love for us, comes everything He gives to us, and His good deeds toward us are too many to count. He provides our salvation, He meets our spiritual needs in our sanctification, and He gives us earthly possessions to help our physical needs and friends for companionship in this life. One of the most beautiful (and eternal) things that He gives to us is salvation. Paul tells us that “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Even though we had turned against God and pursued the path of living for our desires of the flesh that leads to death, Christ came and died on a cross for us so that we could turn to Him and have our sins forgiven and hearts completely transformed. Now THAT is a gift - there is nothing we did to deserve what Christ did for us, but God’s grace through the work of Christ was a gift that justified us in His sight (Romans 3:24). Not just a “little” grace to scrape by until we mess up again, which we definitely do, but endless grace for all the times we mess up, for “from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). This gift of salvation from God’s gracious love for us is not temporary. It is a gift that has purchased eternal life with Christ for all who trust in Him.

God also provides for the constant spiritual needs of His children through His holy spirit He placed within us. Isn’t it incredible that God is so gracious to not only provide us with salvation to be with Christ for eternity in heaven, but He provides for the daily weaknesses of our souls, even when we don’t think we need Him? When we are struggling in life, God tells us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness,” allowing us to “boast all the more gladly of [our] weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon [us]” (2 Corinthians 12:9). We need not fear our incapabilities or the temptation to sin because if Christ is in us, He has defeated the death that captured our flesh and sin, so only by trusting Him and turning to Him will we be able to pursue righteousness and live in hope. But we are not just supposed to do this when we feel weak and hopeless, but all the time because we are weak in our flesh all the time. We don’t recognize it most of the time because our flesh wants to believe that we don’t need God, as if the tough parts of life are for God to handle but the rest is up to us. We have no right to boast anytime we perform a good deed or fight away temptation because that was not the power of our flesh. It is the power of Christ within us through the working of the Holy Spirit. If we are not living our lives in dependence on God, reading His word and praying regularly to know Him more, it is easy to forget how weak we are and how strong He is. But this is reality, and Satan wants us to forget this (Ephesians 6:11).

God not only provides the strength through Christ to fight our battles, but He also provides the food to nourish our souls at all times. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). He is not talking about food and water we put in our belly (though He is certainly able) but feeding our souls. Is your soul hungry for wisdom? Hungry for strength to fight spiritual battles throughout the day? Hungry for feeling loved and treasured? Turn to Him in prayer, and love Him with your heart. Feed on His word to be reminded of who He is - His promises and care for you. He is the only one who provides food that never perishes, food that provides strength and joy in glorifying Him that day, and He is much more satisfying than anything we can find on earth.

This means that our thankfulness does not depend on how much money we have, whether our health is thriving or failing, how high or low our gpa, our application success, or how many people “approve” of us, because His grace is never ending, and He has gifted us with a purpose outside of this world: to glorify God (Psalm 115:1). We should give thanks to God for everything because no matter what we are going through or how well we are doing, He loves us as our Father and does not give up on His purpose for us as His adopted children (John 14:18). It is so easy to forget about God’s eternal provision for our souls because He has also given us things on earth that we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. For me, there are many times I find myself basing my happiness and thankfulness on the popularity, comfort, and riches I have on earth. It is certainly not bad to thank God when our health is thriving or when family is gathered around the table to enjoy some turkey and mashed potatoes. But we should never take these things for granted, feeling that we deserve “this” and “this” so that we have a right to not be thankful when we do not get it and bear a grudge against God. While God has created and provided all of creation, we must recognize that everything (including ourselves) belongs to Him, not us (Deuteronomy 10:14). He is the king of all creation, so we submit to whatever He does, giving thanks that He acts for our good and His glory rather than for evil (Romans 8:28). He has provided the food on the table, the sun in the sky, the clothing on your body, the friends and family in your life, and the beauty of trees in autumn, but He has provided us with something even greater: grace that never fades, and the eternal treasure that is Christ Himself. Recognizing God’s righteous provision for our desperate souls humbles us to true thankfulness. Theologian and former-Pastor John Piper explains that “Genuine thankfulness is an act of the heart’s affections, not an act of the lips’ muscles. It is not willed, but awakened. It is not a decision of the will, but a reflex of the heart. It happens to us. We become aware of good will toward us, and either we feel gratitude or we are ungrateful.”¹ When we not only see that God has graciously provided for us out of His love for us (and we will never be able to see all that God has provided for us because His mercies are eternally abundant!) but that we also have done nothing to earn His provision for our souls and bodies, we marvel at God’s grace for us, as expressed in a verse from the old hymn “How Sweet and Awesome is the Place”:

While all our hearts and all our songs

join to admire the feast,

each of us cries, with thankful tongue,

"Lord, why was I a guest?

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to be with family, but our God has an even greater feast waiting for us. God will “make for all peoples a feast of rich food” (Isaiah 25:6). A feast where “He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 25:8). It will be a feast completely free of sin or burdens on our minds, and it will be in the presence of our Holy God who has declared that we are clean and adopted through the finished work of Christ. We have nothing to boast of reasons why He allows us to be a guest feast in His feast - we can only marvel that God has shown grace to sinners like us who have been saved and adopted by Him. So our thankfulness for God’s provision brings us to pour out praise out of joy that God has cast His mercy on us.

The “Giving” in Thanksgiving

The second part of the word thanksgiving - “giving” - means that our thankfulness leads to giving up ourselves. When, by God’s grace, we see that all things on this earth (even our own body and soul) belong to God, what reason do we have to not sacrificially give to others (Psalm 24:1)? In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains what sacrificial giving to others looks like:

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.

Giving to others is not just giving gifts or money, but giving includes our words, service, and energy, too. Giving includes ourselves and anything we have, but it is not truly giving if we are simply thinking about how to appear generous while keeping pleasures to ourselves. For example, for most of us, it is much easier to send a gift card to a family going through a hard time than making a meal to bring, perhaps sitting and talking with them while you’re there. Now, perhaps a gift card really is all that the family needs, but I know that I often find my own motivation in giving to others to be a question of “what would be easiest to give?” rather than “what do they need?”. We should not wait for people to ask or plead from us. To give to others is a matter of our hearts more than it is an external action. We should be willing servants, knowing that we are ultimately serving God, who has provided us with everything to glorify Himself and pour His love onto us, which also glorifies Him.

Living a life of generosity is not about obligation, in fact, it is completely freeing. What makes giving to others hard is our sin and selfishness - that we believe we live for our own pleasure and comfort rather than denying ourselves to live for Christ, as Christ told us to (Luke 9:23). Giving becomes freedom because we do not have to worry about if we have enough, we do not have to worry about what others will think if we do not have certain materials or personality traits, we do not have to worry about giving up ourselves and receiving nothing in return to sustain us. Our God is a God who provides: “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” ( Romans 8:32). We need not fear what we will lose when we become sacrificial servants to others. Giving brings glory to God because it pleases Him: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:16). Giving shows love to others in sacrificing what we have to meet their needs: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). Ultimately, giving is out of love for God, and a posture of thankfulness that all things come from Him, and all things come and go in His perfect and divine providence (Job 1:21). Those who give with servant-hearts are considered blessed, for it “is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). The joy of giving to others and being free from holding on to things that actually belong to God, is a blessing.

How Thanksgiving Changes Us

Thankfulness is a heart that can contain joy, even in dark times, because there is a joy we have in Christ that will last for eternity. Thankfulness allows us to experience the joy of basking in the goodness of God. It also allows us to know the joy of giving to others out of this thankfulness to God, desiring to show His abundant grace to others, whether friends or strangers. When the troubles and stressors of the world bear down on our shoulders, we can remind ourselves that God provides beyond the needs of this world, that He overcomes all of our failures through the work of Christ, and that we can rely on Him to continue to serve and give to others even when we do not feel that we are strong enough or capable. Let us come to the feet of God and ask for hearts filled with thankfulness and giving, hearts that can only thrive when rooted in Him.

References

1. Piper, John. “Thanksgiving, Thanksfeeling, and the Glory of God.”Desiring God, 8 Nov. 2013, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/thanksgiving-thanksfeeling-and-the-glory-of-god.