What are you thankful for? Giving thanks or “thanksgiving” is central to who we are as Christians. If we scour the Scriptures we will come across many references calling for thankfulness. The Psalmist proclaims, “I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving” (69:30). In the Old Testament, the book of Leviticus to be exact, the fellowship offering of thanksgiving is explained as a way to appreciate and honor the God who provides (7:12-14). And in the New Testament Paul always thanks God for the grace given the saints through Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:4). It is by the grace of God through Jesus we have reason to be thankful, Paul states in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” God has revealed to me Himself as a God who cares, a God who loves, a God who gives and a God who deserves our “thanksgiving”.
As the Church we participate in thanksgiving through the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup that helps us remember and participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. A few years back a group of Christians caravanned to downtown Kansas City to offer thanksgiving to God through service to the poor. We give thanks to God through the act of service, offering hope to those without homes, jobs or families. I would like to think that this is what compassion is all about, “adjusting our wants with the needs of others.” The amazing thing about works of compassion is that we set out to change the lives of others and in the process God finds a way to change our lives as well.
As I reflect on this experience that I shared with my brothers and sisters there is no doubt that God commissioned us that day to live a life of holy love. We started out by leaving the homes and going to where the need was, downtown Kansas City. We arrived that chilly morning unsure whether we would even get the opportunity to pass out the hot meals we had prepared or the jackets we had collected. In the film, “Field of Dreams” a poor corn farmer in the middle of Iowa hears a voice telling him to construct a baseball field in the middle of his crop to which he asks, “Why am I doing this?”, and the whispering voice responds “If you build it they will come”. As we were preparing the vehicles to deliver meals, just as doubt began to set in God whispered as only He could, “If you build it they will come” and when we looked up a brother and over twenty homeless men came out of the woodworks to share in an unconventional meal of “thanksgiving”.
In the words of Leviticus 7 this was our fellowship offering, we fellowshipped with those who out of all of us had no reason to be thankful, but surprisingly they were! Two of these men, Mike and Ut (you-t), reminded me that we all have reason to be thankful. Mike shared with us that he was in Kansas City from Costa Mesa, California because he wanted to be closer to his eight year old boy. In the same way Ut shared with us that he was from Vietnam, but had lived in California and Texas before his car broke down in Kansas City after he had came there for a job. Of course these two were homeless and had reason to be bitter, but they showed us the Christian character of thankfulness as they stuck around to fellowship with us, even after they had finished their meals. These men did not have much but what they did have they were thankful for. Stuff that you and I often times take for granted they found reason to be thankful; how much more would our Christian character shine through if this attitude of thankfulness overflowed out of our entire being wherever we were, whomever we were with, no matter the situation or circumstance? In both of Paul’s letters to Timothy he reminds him of the importance of being thankful. He urges Timothy to first of all offer prayers, petitions and thanksgiving for all people (1 Tim. 2:1) and then later reminds him of God’s good creation, that nothing is to be rejected if it is received in thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4), and he continually affirms his thanks offered up to God for Timothy as has been done throughout Scriptures (2 Tim. 1:3). So, to get back to the initial question, what are you thankful for? I believe the answer is right in front of us; in all things let us give thanks to the Lord!
