Thanksgiving. Let’s talk about it. At Thanksgiving friends, and family all over gather together to eat an extremely large meal and for some, they go around the table before the meal naming things that they are thankful for. There is a trend online where, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, people will make posts about the things they are thankful for.
Gathering with friends and family for Thanksgiving. It is a time of togetherness, which in today’s fast-paced, schedule-packed lives, is rare. I am indeed thankful for these moments. With the holiday fast approaching, I can’t help but think about the way we live, and how we are moving away from thankfulness being practiced daily, to something we do once a year.
The longer you practice giving thanks, or doing actions of thankfulness the more you feel thankful in your heart and mind, this starts to show outwardly.
If you have anxiety, thankfulness can be a form of comfort. People often feel anxious due to things going on around them that are outside of their control. Common methods to help people stop the rise of anxiety include counting, focusing on tangible things around them, and breathing. You can also pause and give thanks to distract your brain with the little things in life that are gifts to you. ( see verse below )
Wake with thankfulness. Often we set a tone for our day by waking and thinking of the million things we need to get done by day’s end. Instead of focusing on tasks or our to-do list. What if, we wake and give thanks from the moment our feet hit the floor till that coffee/tea is in hand? Be mindful of how quickly your brain can turn back to that to-do list. It will still be there. So why not focus our mind and heart elsewhere first thing?
I like the deep breathing and giving thanks combo. My favorite is to focus on giving thanks to God for giving us the gift of life, without breath we literally wouldn’t be here. Or as I hear the kiddos coming up the stairs fighting with one another over semantics I give thanks that they’ve been entrusted to my and my husband’s care. I give thanks for another day, for the people in my corner of life, for where the Lord has placed us, and so on. Once you get going you’ll notice it can really take off!
When your day gets derailed from the direction in which it was headed. Give thanks, maybe there is a reason for your derailment.
When you pray, start with thanksgiving, then move to requests. The Bible has a lot to say about living a life of thanksgiving.
If you live out the fruits of the Spirit, stepping into thankfulness is easy because your heart is full of these things below.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law,
When we share Jesus
Psalm 26:7 Proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling of your wondrous deeds.
When we pray for others
Colossians 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
Guard your heart in mind in Christ Jesus
Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Gods creation thrives in thanksgiving
1 Timothy 4:4-5 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
If we truly assess the world around us at the moment, it’s filled with a lot of impatience, self-loving, quick-tempered, easily angered, and agitated people. Most often these actions come from filling our lives with too much business. If we let go of, and say no, to things that don’t fill our cups, then we will have space to let our thanksgiving grow.
Be thankful, start walking around with a heart of thanksgiving and praise, and hope it catches like a fire getting started. Think of it as an experiment – see if you can be so thankful that you see your actions causing a ripple effect on those in your life. What a cool story to tell!
Just some table talk for you this Thanksgiving! I’m thankful you’re here and reading this still, and I believe we can fuel this fire of thanksgiving in the world.
Happy Thanksgiving!