My Thanksgiving Box

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Thess%205:18&version=NIV

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Chronicles+16:34&version=NIV

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+100:4&version=NIV

As a Christian I have always sought to be thankful.  After all, as I mentioned in my post, Blessing Guilt, God has blessed me greatly in my life.  He has given me way more than I asked for.  Or deserved.  So I have tried to respond to Him by being thankful.

After a Thanksgiving sermon in 2005 I decided to add a new twist to my attempts to be thankful.  Whether the idea was original with me, or I saw it somewhere else, I don’t remember.  Anyway, I took an empty facial tissue box and wrapped it in fine, elegant, gold foil.  In some ways it looked like it could be a gift to the Christ Child in a Christmas play!  Then I designed a page of Thanksgiving slips on my computer and printed it out.  After cutting the page into individual slips I began to write down things for which I was thankful.  Some big things.  Mostly small things.  Such as a safe trip to and from Billings for District business (900 miles round trip).  The celebration of a holiday or birthday with the family.  The birth of our grandchildren.  Their first teeth.  First steps.  Going out to a restaurant to eat.  All kinds of things.

Once the following Thanksgiving rolled around I took all of the slips out of the box.  I carefully arranged them in chronological order.  Then Beth & I sat down and we read them all.  How much we had to be thankful for!  A whole year of blessings, big and small, many of which would have been forgotten if they hadn’t been written down.  It certainly helped us to see how much God had done over the past year.  This inspired another wave of thankfulness.

The reality is that some people are naturally thankful.  They seem to have been born that way.  Others, not so much.  They are worriers.  Or complainers.  So thankfulness doesn’t come quite as easy for them.  But this doesn’t mean that they will always have to be thanksgiving-challenged.  With God’s help, and a little bit of intentionality, they can change. They can learn to be thankful.  To embrace it as a lifestyle.

I don’t know where you are on the thankfulness continuum.  Perhaps you are one of those rare people who is thankful for anything and everything.  God bless you.  Keep it up.  Then again, maybe you’re not.  Nothing to fear.  There are plenty of ways to embrace a thankful lifestyle.  Make your own Thanksgiving Box.  Or include a time of thankfulness in your daily prayers.  One person I read about decided to give thanks for something every time they had to stop at a red light in traffic.  Another person trained themselves to give thanks every time they opened a door.  The ‘how’ is not important.  The fact that we give thanks is.

Lord, I thank you for all the rich, wonderful blessings You give me.  Big and small.  I am grateful for them.  Continue to help me to be thankful for all that I have.  For all that You do.  For all that You’re making of me.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.