The Way of the Thankful
1 Thessalonians 5:12-18
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
One of the difficult challenges of a devotional writer is to create angles, novel ways of looking at the word that cast the events of this grand drama of life in a glorious new light. Anais Nin once said, “The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say but what we are unable to say.” It’s both the lure and the burden of anyone who chooses to click keys in an effort to write a few true sentences.
The challenge becomes stiffer when holidays roll around. When the collective chorus of the world swells louder and bolder, it’s difficult to write something new and thought-provoking. Walt Whitman explained that one of the good things in life is that “the powerful play goes on and you will contribute a verse.” Adding a Thanksgiving-themed verse proves difficult.
I could write about the overdone (all the good things I’m thankful for), the difficult (all the “bad” things I’m thankful for), or the instructive (how to properly cultivate a grateful heart). The result has been fewer words than it takes to fill a gravestone.
Granted, the instructions from Scripture are clear regarding thanksgiving:
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” - I Thessalonians 5:16-18
“Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” - Ephesians 5:18b-20
The Psalms teem with words about gratitude:
"Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." - Psalm 106:1
"I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving." - Psalm 69:30
"I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever." - Psalm 86:12
The question is not whether or not to be thankful. We know that people who owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to a Savior should have lives tattooed with gratitude on their souls. The question is what our thanksgiving looks like year after year. It’s a quandary that maybe you’ve wrestled with at some point in your journey: how do I get Thanksgiving right? How can I be properly thankful so that the day doesn’t slip away leaving me wanting?
It’s a problem similar to the one that my dad faced as a young pastor. When the calendar flipped toward November and December, he struggled with how to spin Thanksgiving or Christmas in novel ways, with how to get the parishioners to contemplate Christ with new eyes each year. He labored in that regard when a mentor preacher gave him wise advice: Tell the story. Simply tell the story. Rather than toiling to make it all new, let them revel in the old, old story, for “those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”
Such a revelation changed his approach to holidays and maybe that advice is instructive for us as well. Maybe the proper approach for a Thanksgiving-themed devotional is not sparkling words of wit and creativity, but rather the same words that all grateful hearts utter, “Thank you.” Maybe it’s not about spinning the attitude of gratitude in poetic fashion, but rather speaking gratitude in whatever fashion.
In fact, maybe this holiday is not really about being thankful for a thousand different things, but rather being thankful for the same things a thousand times. As parents, when your kids offer unprompted appreciation for something they’re given, they can use the same words a million times over before it would ever grow stale.
Maybe it’s the same thing with God. The words of thanks, however they might be expressed - whether novel or beautiful, said with beaming smile or gritted out through tears - are beautiful simply in the deliberate act of uttering them.
Maybe Whitman was right. There’s beauty in each of the verses that we contribute to the song of life, even if during certain seasons, they’re pretty identical to one another. And maybe on a day like Thanksgiving, the whole chorus of humankind sings in unison with the same words and heaven resounds with that delightful melody of gratitude.