Bible Text:

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord.”                                    (Psalm 92:1)

There is a prayer in the worship tradition of the African-American church that goes something like this: 

Thank you, God, for waking me up this morning; for putting shoes on my feet, clothes on my back, and food on my table. Thank you, God, for health and strength and the activities of my limbs. Thank you that I woke this morning in my right mind. 

Not a bad prayer to start the day…any day, or every day. 

Sometimes prayers of thanksgiving are scarce. One of Shakespeare’s plays says, “Beggar that I am I am even poor in thanks.” 

The Psalmist says, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord.” This is more than a pious saying, more than just plain common sense. It’s also more than a casual expression. This is a profound truth in which to live. It is a good thing to give thanks. Why? I believe the Psalmist knew several things. 

FOCUSING ON GOD 

For one thing, giving thanks focuses your attention on God. Our culture is not anti-God; but it tends to focus our attention elsewhere. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday that retail America ignores. They know that the important holiday is right after Thanksgiving. The Christmas emphasis comes right after Halloween. Thanksgiving simply marks the beginning in earnest. One writer says this: 

If you are a retailer, you don’t want to emphasize Thanksgiving. If you are thankful for what you have, you’re not as likely to rush out and buy more stuff. And that’s bad for America. 

My personal discipline is to stay out of the stores on the two days after Thanksgiving! I give myself a reasonable chance and some space to say a sustained “Thank you” to God. 

Thanksgiving focuses our attention upon God. I have a colleague who suggested in the early fall that his congregation engage in a 30-day discipline. He advised them to get a journal, and at the end of each day write down five things for which they were thankful. They always had to be different things. There were no repeats allowed. 

What if you did that each day from now until Christmas? My guess and my conviction is that it would help you focus upon God. Thanksgiving does that. 

Garrison Keillor is best known for his weekly radio show entitled “Prairie Home Companion” on PBS. But every day people tune in to hear him for 5 minutes in the morning on the program called “The Writer’s Almanac.” During those 5 minutes Keillor reads a poem. They are not his poems; they are poems that he has selected. He has just published a new book entitled Good Poems. The first section is entitled simply, “O Lord.” Mostly they are prayers of gratitude for sheer existence. 

Keillor was asked whether or not gratitude seemed like the fundamental religious dimension to life. Listen to his response to an interviewer. 

Yes indeed. Gratitude is where spiritual life begins. Thank you, Lord, for this amazing and bountiful life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Thank you for this laptop computer and for this yellow kitchen table, and for the clock on the wall and the cup of coffee and the glasses on my nose, and for these black slacks and this black T-shirt. Thanks for black, and for other colors. Thank you, Lord, for giving me the wherewithal not to fix a half-pound cheeseburger right now, and to eat a stalk of celery instead. Thank you for the wonderful son, and the amazing daughter, and the smart, sexy wife, and the grandkids. Thank you that I haven’t had alcohol in lo these many months, and thank you that it isn’t as big a struggle to do without as I had so feared it might be. Thank you for the odd delight of being 60, part of which is the sheer relief of not being 50.

Keillor concludes, “I could go on and on. One should enumerate one’s blessings and set them before the Lord. Begin every day with this exercise.”[i]  

Eugene Peterson writes of a young man in his congregation. The young man and his wife were enthusiastic participants in the church. But the weeds of the world began to choke their young faith. They had several children. They acquired wealth. Their lives began to be filled up with boats and cars and house building and social events. They were at worship less and less. Then they were there not at all.

 One bright Sunday morning they showed up again. “What brought you to worship today?” Peterson asked. He received this response: “I awoke this morning feeling so good, so blessed, so alive, so created—I just had to say ‘thank you.’ And this is the only place I could think of to say it adequately. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to Jesus.”[ii] 

Giving thanks can bring you into an overwhelming experience with God. 

I came across this Jewish Passover prayer: 

Even if our mouths were filled with songs like the sea, our tongues with joy like its mighty waves, our lips with praise like the breadth of the sky, if our eyes shone like the sun and the moon, and our hands were spread out like the eagles of heaven, if our feet were as swift as the deer, we should still be incapable of thanking you adequately for one thousandth part of all the love you have shown us. 

RESHAPING YOUR DAILY LIFE 

Giving thanks can also reshape your daily life. I think the Psalmist knew this. Gratitude can change your life. 

Too often our lives focus upon the hardships. A second grade teacher made an assignment to her class. She asked them to put themselves in the place of the Pilgrims. What kind of hardships did they endure? 

One boy returned to class the next day with his assignment complete. He reported that the Pilgrims had difficulty keeping their pants up. “How did you make that discovery?” asked the teacher. He replied, “I pretended I was one of the Pilgrims. I dressed like one. And as soon as I put my belt on my hat, my pants fell down!” 

Giving thanks takes the focus off the hardships. To give your life as an expression of gratitude makes a world of difference. 

Annie Dillard wrote, “I think that the dying pray at the last not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.’” 

In a little village in Denmark there is a carefully manicured and landscaped cemetery next to the community church. At least a third of the markers in that cemetery have the inscription, “Tak,” which means “thanks” in Danish. 

In the same interview mentioned above, Garrison Keillor says, “List your blessings and you will walk through those gates of thanksgiving and into the fields of joy.” 

Dennis Prager is a conservative columnist in America. One night he was being interviewed by Larry King. Prager said, “The most important component of happiness, by far—there isn’t a close second—is gratitude. My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, the day of gratitude to God.” 

Last year I preached on the story of the ten lepers healed by Jesus. You may recall that ten lepers came to Jesus to be healed. He healed them all, but only one returned to give thanks. Last year I focused on the nine who did not return. I speculated as to why they didn’t return. 

A few weeks ago I read a sermon by Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. He preached a message in which he focused on the one who did return. He comments that it almost seemed as though Jesus heals the man again. He says to him, “Rise, go, your faith has made you well.” 

And then Tutu says,  

I have thought that perhaps this Gospel story points to a deeper leprosy of the spirit, the leprosy of ingratitude. To be unthankful, to be unappreciated, is in fact to be diseased. To cleanse our spirits of depression, of self-pity and other forms of spiritual leprosy, we have to be thankful, appreciative persons.[iii]

White the nine others may have found healing in their bodies, this man found healing in his soul. Gratitude will do that. 

Research is now showing that people who count their blessings—who really count them one by one—sleep better. They also show significant improvements in mental health. They even show improvements in physical health. And this appears to be true whether you are a high school student in the peak of health, or whether you are an older person with chronic illness. 

A blind man was asked by a sympathetic woman, “Doesn’t being blind rather color your life?” He responded this way, “Yes, but thank God I can choose the color. And since I am responsible for my life, I’m going to keep on choosing the most beautiful colors I can.” 

Your life will grow deeper and richer when you are grateful. 

A BLESSING TO OTHERS 

And you will also be a blessing to others. Giving thanks puts your whole life on a new course.

 I was very much taken by last Sunday’s prayer of confession in our worship service. It spoke to me deeply—especially the last line. The line read, “Forgive us, Almighty God, for the times we have been blessed, but have failed to bless.” 

There’s an old phrase that says we are “blessed to be a blessing.” But it’s so true. Thankful living changes us. We reach out more. We want to touch others with hope and encouragement. We want to heal some of the small hurts of the world. 

I invite you to set for yourself a special Thanksgiving to Christmas discipline this year. Get a small journal or use a paper tablet. At the end of each day, write down 5 things for which you are thankful out of that day. Never repeat any one thing—at least not in the same way. 

Choose the colors of gratitude for the next few weeks. Name the blessings of each day—one by one. You will be drawn closer to God. And you will significantly reshape your daily walk. 

Amen.