On Practicing Gratitude

As we approach Thanksgiving 2021, how are you feeling?

Hopeful? Anxious? Excited? Sad? 

Maybe some of you are seeing family members you haven’t seen in a long, long time, and so your heart is filled with a sense of fullness of finally being able to sit around the table together again.

Perhaps others of you are missing the company of loved ones this holiday – whether separated by a loved one’s death, geographical distance, or ideological disagreements.

In either case, I think the expectation/excitement or the anxiety/sadness can be traced back to one simple aspect of our humanity: Memory.

You’re excited to see your loved ones because you remember the good times you’ve had together. Or in the other scenario, you’re saddened by the loss because the old times carried with them some good memories.

The human memory is a fascinating thing; we are prone to either forgetfulness, or a re-writing of our experiences in order to fit our particular narrative.

Don’t believe me?

All you have to do is flash back to your adolescent years – remember that cute girl or handsome boy you had your sights set on? And then that moment they said hi back to you?

To you, from your perspective (your narrative), that simple hello meant that the two of you would fall in love, have a family and a big house, and live happily ever after.  

But to the other, it was merely a return of a greeting – your narrative affected your interpretation of the events.

Or how about the forgetfulness we experience, also influenced by our narrative? Was the glass half full? Half empty? Did we have a mostly good day, but one small event influenced our memory of the day as a whole?

Now – I’m not saying that those impact moments shouldn’t influence us. They do, and they should. My point is simply to attest that we don’t always see things with the clearest of lenses. You might have just gotten a raise from your boss, but the unpleasant exchange with a coworker on the way out of that meeting just tainted the entire day. Soon enough, we’ve forgotten about the raise, but we sure remember the conflict with the coworker.

It's this type of short-term memory loss that I think is the reason why God asked the Israelites, time and again, to build monuments throughout the generations. Why? To remember.

God wanted his people to stack stones, to build altars, to create monuments, in order to fashion physical reminders of his goodness and faithfulness to them.

Why? Because he knows how easily we forget.

So this Thanksgiving, what would it look like if you spent more time focusing your attention on who is seated at the table, rather than who isn’t? (Now, I’m not at all suggesting you dishonor those who aren’t there, but more suggesting a mindset of gratitude for what we have, rather than what we don’t have.)

What if we took some intentional moments leading up to dinner, to remember the ways God has been faithful to you this past year? Maybe it’s been a financial blessing; maybe you’ve stayed healthy, or recovered from illness? Maybe you’re sick, or have fallen on hard times, but you’re still here, and you’ve got people who love you and are sticking by your side?

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When Jesus had his last meal before being crucified, he sat around a table with his closest friends. One of them, Jesus was fully aware, was about to sell him over to be arrested in a matter of hours. But nevertheless, Jesus chose to spend his last evening with these fellas.

What did he do?

As he broke bread, he asked them to remember.

He encouraged them to do this every time they sat down for that traditional meal – breaking bread in order to remember God’s faithfulness, not just in bringing the Israelites through some crazy situations, but also so they themselves could remember their own journeys and the crazy situations God had delivered them from, had blessed them in, and had been by their side through.

What would it look like if we practiced similarly this Thanksgiving?

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Someone once said that the heart cannot hold both gratitude and anxiety in the same space. That when we focus on gratitude, the anxiety gets pushed out and its voice silenced.

I wonder if the same is true of sadness, of hopelessness, or of whatever else you may be experiencing this season.

For me, I will choose to discipline myself to focus on gratitude. I’ll likely make a list, very likely on my phone, so I can add to it as life’s situations remind me of the blessings, both big and small, that God has placed before me.

And when I sit at the table on Thanksgiving day, I will pause and silently reflect on that list, and say a prayer of thanks to the God who provides all good things, and will take a minute to simply… remember.