What to Do After Thanksgiving (Besides Eating Leftovers)

In case you forgot, Thanksgiving is this Thursday. That has already put me in a good mood for the week because Thanksgiving is the doorway to my most favorite time of the year: “The Holidays.” One of the reasons I love this season so much is that it lends itself to hopeful reflection. Both Thanksgiving and the Christmas season call us to remember what God has done and to look more intently at what He’s doing right now.  It makes us take a “time-out” to express our gratefulness for His goodness and grace in our lives.

But with the joyous celebration of the season, I also find a challenge. It’s easy to be thankful on Thanksgiving (and Christmas for that matter). Thanksgiving is a day of abundance: great food, time off work, fellowship with family and friends. Why shouldn’t we thank God for all His blessings when we’re holding tangible evidence of them on our dinner and dessert plates? But what about after the Thanksgiving leftovers have been polished off and the daily grind starts again on Monday morning?  Will the Day of Thanks translate into daily thankful living? It seems that’s when the real challenge to be thankful comes.

The Bible is replete with verses about gratitude, but I think no verse stresses the practical importance of giving thanks than I Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  And for those of us who like to use the “we don’t have to give thanks for all things, just in all things” loophole, God has given us Ephesians 5:20: “giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There’s no wiggle room here; God’s will for Christians is that they be thankful people, in everything and for everything.

For me, a griper by nature, the simply-stated direction from God’s Word is wonderfully helpful. With the added benefit of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I don’t have to look far to see where thankful living can be applied in my life. When my inner-whiner wants to ask why our toddler has to make so many messes, the Holy Spirit helps me see those messes as sweet reminders that we have a toddler to love and care for (and one day I’ll miss those messes to clean up). Where my inner-mumbler sees the 4-hour attempt at fixing the car CD player as a complete waste of time, the Holy Spirit helps me see that the same venture expanded my knowledge of automobile interiors and confirmed that the CD player really is broken and I can be thankful for it.

 So, in case you, like me, are suffering from a little lack of GTA (Giving Thanks Always), use this year’s Thanksgiving celebration as the catalyst for injecting practical gratitude into your daily routine.  You can start by thanking God for the dishwasher…because as every Thanksgiving dinner clean-up crew knows, you’re going to need it.