Taking time to give thanks

What does it mean for us to be thankful? I have had to stop and ask myself that question. What does it mean to be thankful? And that’s when something that was taught to me many years ago came back to me: a thankful heart sings. If there isn’t some song in your heart, then you need to find out why. When you find out then it is necessary not only to deal with whatever has stopped the music, but we need to start a song again. I find most of the time, that it is fear that steals the song from a person’s heart.  The cause of the fear will differ from person to person. But fear is most often the root cause of the loss of song.

May be it will surprise you that Thanksgiving Day is very much a Newfoundland and Canadian tradition. Much is often made of how the Puritans celebrated their first thanksgiving at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621 and how they brought that north to Halifax when the British took over Nova Scotia from the French.  The earliest account of a North American thanksgiving feast, giving thanks for safe passage across the Atlantic was held in Newfoundland by explorer Martin Frobisher in 1578. In Canada we used to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on November 6^th. In 1957, Thanksgiving became a national holiday in Canada and is celebrated on the second Monday of October. Why is it important to have a day of National thanksgiving? Well in simple terms, we need to be reminded to be thankful. In a country where we have so much and have been so blessed we need to be reminded to be thankful. It is as if when we drink the water, we forget the glass. And unfortunately, there are times that we live our spiritual lives in the same manner. We forget how fortunate we are until something happens and we are jolted back to the reality that not everyone is as blessed as we are. We take the time to remind ourselves that God has given us the fruits of the earth to use and we have eaten and drank and had our fill.  And because we have been filled we want to return to the source of that blessing to be filled again and again.

So what does it mean when we have had our fill and we still go looking for Jesus – it means that we might just be looking for something a little deeper than another slice of bread or piece of fish – as good and as tempting as those might be. Seeking out Christ when we have had our fill means that we want to seek out the source of our blessing and to continue to be blessed; that we would continue to eat and to live.  So take an opportunity to give thanks, not only for what you have been given, but also for the fact that God desires to continue to bless you and that you have the opportunity now to go and be a blessing in Jesus’ name.