Practice Thankfulness

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

Two reasons: 1) It is uniquely American. And I am proud my country created a holiday to thank God and practice thankfulness. We do get at least some credit for continuing it. 2) It demonstrates humility and faith in God. I love it.

However, I do have some beef with my American pop culture today. We don’t keep Thanksgiving well. That is we don’t celebrate it properly, and we are missing out on blessings because of it.

So to keep Thanksgiving myself and for my family, I want to practice Thankfulness by giving thanks to God in this post. I will take a cue from a wise colleague of mine, Sue Bohlin (Check out her insightful blog.) Here I will make the choice to thank God even though I may not feel good about them.

In this post I will thank God for things that are hard.

First, I choose to thank you, God for my dad’s health issues recently. A couple Mondays ago I was finishing my day at the office when my mum calls. She says dad got checked out by his doctor for a routine check up when doc asked him to check into a hospital so they could run some tests.

The tests came back with good reports. All is fine. For now. But that was a scary day for me and my family. Thank you, God that You give us what’s best for us and not necessarily what we desire. My desires are broken and twisted. Thank you, God for giving me an opportunity to trust you by faith that you work all things together for my good and your glory.

Second, I choose to thank You that marriage is hard! Marriage is certainly NOT the butterflies, romance, and warm feelings as depicted in TV and movies. No it’s better. Thank you, God. Marriage takes work, they say. And my marriage seems to take work every day, sometimes hour by hour. Thank you, God that You believe I can handle the task. Thank you, God that you only give me what I’m able to handle. Thank you, God that you make a way of escape from temptation that I may never have to sin when I walk by faith in your Spirit.

Third, thank you ,God that my children are disobedient. By their disobedience I learn the depth of my own depravity. I feel angry when my son disobeys. I do. I felt it last night at dinner when he decided throwing rice on mommy was appropriate. I feel angry when he disobeys and I identify with your anger, God. Through it You remind me that you respond patiently with mercy and compassion. You alone are the One who deserves to be angry. You alone are rightly justified in your anger. Mine is motivated from selfishness. Yours is not. Yet still you treat me with love and compassion. You give me mercy when I deserve death. Thank you for teaching me patience through difficulty.

You are good. You want good things for me.

Thank you, God.