The thanksgiving holiday is pretty simple and straightforward. It’s a time for us to be thankful. I’ve always approached thanksgiving as a time to make a personal list of the many blessings in my life which are many.
When families gather around the thanksgiving table, there’s a tradition to go around the table and share something for which they are thankful. If we would each share all of our blessings, the food would get too cold. I think the listing of our blessings is the easy part of Thanksgiving because there are just so many for us to name.
So, it’s no wonder that our Thanksgiving reading from the Book of Deuteronomy begins with a long list of reasons for the people of Israel to be thankful. At the top of that thanksgiving list was that God was leading them to their new home in the Promised Land.
Just listen to this long thanksgiving list that involves the land they are about to enter. A wonderful land, streams of water, springs, wells that gush up in the valleys and the hills, a land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil, honey, no shortage of food, stones, copper and plenty of stones for building. What a list!
If this was scripture was written today rather than thousands of years ago, maybe this is how it would read. “Because the Lord your God is bringing you to a wonderful land, a land with well-maintained parks, hospitals, gyms, an awesome zoo, 4 lane highways, and plenty of restaurant choices, you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless the Lord in the wonderful land that he’s given you.”
Whether it’s the 21st century or during ancient times, coming up with a thanksgiving list is the easy part. Just take a few minutes to think about your blessings, and I’m sure you’ll come up with a really long list.
Every morning during my prayer time, I end my prayer by listing and thanking God for the many blessings in my life. A lot of times, I list the same things, but sometimes there will be other blessings that will come to mind, and I will name those instead.
I have a friend who would often remind me, “our health is our wealth.” I’ve heard him say that enough times, that I now will often include this in my list of thanksgivings. “Thank you, God for my health, for being able to have a doctor, and for health insurance.”
Thanks to my friend, this particular blessing of health will often now be near the top of my list when I name God’s blessings in my life.
A friend who likes golf told me that even when he is having an awful round of golf where he’s hitting every other shot in the woods or into the water, he’ll simply say to himself, “But it’s still a nice day.” “But it’s still a nice day.”
I like that! Even if things do not go our way, what a difference it can make when we remind ourselves, “But it’s still a nice day.”
Sometimes, I’ll remember to simply say to God something like, “You know, God, it’s been a while since I have remembered to simply thank you for sending Jesus to die for my sins and for being such an awesome source of hope and comfort in my life. Thank you so much for not only saving me, but for also being present in my life to strengthen and guide me. Like, I can’t imagine what it would be like if you weren’t in my life. Thank you! I should tell you that more often!”
So, in any given moment, we can always be thankful because our blessings are more than we can even count. The challenge isn’t in coming up with a list of blessings in our lives. The real challenge is in not taking these bessings for granted. That’s the challenge.
Our scripture reading even offers us this warning: “But watch yourself! Don’t forget the Lord your God. Don’t become arrogant, forgetting the Lord your God.”
We forget the Lord our God whenever we forget that we live in a world were many people go without the basic necessities of life. We forget the Lord whenever we forget that the blessings we have are in some measure due to other people who have helped us to get to where we are in life.
I think of a successful farmer who started with little more than a mule and a small piece of land. He plows the fields, endures droughts and floods, and enjoys abundant harvests and prosperity. At the end of a long workday, he drinks a cold beverage on his beautiful front porch that he had built with his own hands. He thinks about his wealth and how far he has come in life.
In Bolivia, a similar aged farmer who has worked just as hard as the first farmer is still poor because he hasn’t had adequate roads to transport his produce to the market. He also lives in an area where there are inadequate schools, a lack of opportunities for success, and poor health care. And yet, the first farmer believes that the only reason people are poor is because they just don’t work hard enough.
I remember my first impression of Guatemala when I went there on a mission trip several years ago. Our Guatemalan mission team leader had picked us up at the airport and drove us to the place where we would be working for the week.
As I looked out the window of the van during our hour-long trip to our mission site, I took notice of the many Guatemalans who were working out in the coffee bean fields under the extremely hot sun. In addition to the men, I saw many women and children working in the fields.
I tried to think how different my life would be if I was forced to work in the hot sun like that every single day. Even before I arrived at the place we would be staying for the week, God had already opened my eyes to how so many people live throughout our world.
Our job was to dig a long water trench from a lake to a tiny village so that the people of that community wouldn’t have to walk everyday to get their water. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in a tiny shack where there was no water.
The Guatemalans of that village worked side by side with us and together we dug a long trench in the hot sun that week. They taught us to pace ourselves and drink plenty of water as we swung pix axes and shoveled the dirt.
Thanks to that mission trip, I have a renewed appreciation for the cup of coffee I buy at the coffee shop. Somebody worked long hours in a hot field for very little pay so that I could go through a drive-thru and have that grande size speciality coffee.
The challenge of Thanksgiving isn’t so much to come up with a list of our many blessings as important as that may be. The real challenge is to not forget those who struggle every single day just to make ends meet. This is the real Thanksgiving challenge.
It’s not surprising then, that just a few chapters later following our Deuteronomy scripture reading we hear that we are to open our hands to the poor and to the needy. The sheer abundance of the land means that their wealth is to be shared, not hoarded.
What helps you to not forget those who struggle to make a living?
I think of waiters and waitresses who are on their feet all day and who get very little pay. The Thanksgiving challenge is to be thankful for their service and if they don’t remember to give me a refill, to offer them some grace. That’s not the easiest job especially when they’re waiting on several tables at the same time.
When I focus only on my blessings and forget about the many people who are struggling and lonely, then I miss out on the true meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday.
I remember a time when I conducted a graveside funeral service for a church member. After the service, I was to ride back with the Funeral Director.
Before we left the cemetery, this funeral director made it a point to call the cemetery office that was in charge of the cemetery to let them know what a wonderful job their workers did to prepare the grave for the service. After he got off his cell phone, I told him that this was a really nice thing for him to do for those workers.
He said that even though he thanked the cemetery workers in person, he knew that if he would also call their manager, that they would probably say something nice to those workers as well. This funeral director was living out the Thanksgiving challenge. He was thinking of the people who often receive little or no appreciation.
As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday this week, let’s remember this Deuteronomy scripture reading and prepare two thanksgiving lists, one that lists our many blessings, and one that will remind us of those who are in need and ways that we can be a blessing to others.
May all of us accept this Thanksgiving challenge because it will help us to be God’s thankful people.
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