Thanksgiving

By the time "One Thousand Gifts" written by Ann Voskamp found its place under my reading lamp, it had already been around for three years.  No surprise.  I have always been slow about getting to a good book.  And, this one is a good one.  It is a thought provoking book that stimulates spiritual growth.  One distinctive things the author encourages is the discipline of writing and developing a gratitude journal.  After reading I started my own gratitude journal and, then, I read the book again.

 

While there are many personal underlinings in the book, one which still stands out is, "Thanksgiving is the evidence of acceptance of whatever He gives."  It is a powerful word for all of us.  It brings to mind the Apostle Paul writing, "...give thanks to God the Father at all time and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."  (Ephesians 5:20)  It is not the usual way most of us think about thanksgiving.  It takes us beyond or glib approach to an important part of our spiritual life to a place where we understand and accept the fact that not all the things which pass through the hands of God toward us are the easy things of life. 

God is a Father whose goodness far surpasses the goodness of any earthly father.  While He does not necessarily send all the hard things which come into our life, He does at the very least, allow them.  It seems that any other view means that someone out there has more power than the God revealed to us through the Word.  Even the hard things allowed through the permissive will of God are things for which we called to be thankful.  Being thankful in those moments does indeed convey an attitude of trust that enables us to say that whatever comes will not change our trust in God and neither will it change our attitude of gratitude toward Him.