Thanksgiving Eve

What are you filled with this evening? … a good dinner? Anger from the argument you had on the way to church? Joy from a wonder­ful weekend you spent with some close friends? I like to picture our hearts as kind of a large five-gallon container that’s filled with all kinds of things … memories, dreams, feelings about what happened yesterday, hopes about what is going to happen this next week.

Our heart can be filled in one of two ways: ei­ther we don’t pay much attention and just allow whatever reactions to people and circumstances happen to fill it; or we can actually choose what we will allow to take up space in our hearts.

St. Paul was an excellent teacher in helping us to understand that what we focus on, what we fill our hearts with, is really our decision. If we believe in Jesus Christ and believe He dwells within our heart, He offers to produce the fruit of his Spirit … joy, love, peace, gentleness, kindness, and so forth. But it doesn’t happen automatically. If we don’t choose what to fill our mind and hearts with each day, it will automatically be filled by the world around us.

I begin with these thoughts this evening because we are celebrating Thanks­giving tomorrow in memory of those first pilgrims who were filled with a thankful at­titude for just being alive on that first Thanksgiving. We’ve all been filled with that kind of thanksgiving before without a lot of conscious thought.

Some of you have had some sort of surgical procedure. Do you re­member those first days out of intensive care when you were so thankful to just be alive? You didn’t have to think about it. You were filled with gratitude at being given another chance. All of a sudden it wasn’t that important whether or not you got that promotion at work, whether a particular person liked you or not, whether your kids got straight A’s on their report cards. When it came to the bottom line of your survival, you saw all of life as a gift, every breath.

But if you’re like most folks, it wasn’t too long before you lost some of that grati­tude and things and circumstances began to fill you with worry again. You began to think you didn’t have enough of this or enough of that.

How can we retain that humble sense of thanksgiving as a daily condition of our hearts? Perhaps it would help to consider some of the truths Paul discov­ered, since obviously he was filled almost daily with an attitude of gratitude. If he is writing to his friends after a shipwreck, or from a prison cell, or after being chased out of a town by a group of angry people, he still begins almost every letter with the words, “I thank God for you,” or “I thank God for what you did for me.”

He seemed to see all of his life in humble gratitude, that he had been given one more day to serve Christ, one more opportunity to preach the good news, one more chance to further God’s kingdom. And perhaps that’s where we should start.

Do you have a purpose that is that important to you?

For Paul, he said it so simply, “Forgetting those things in my past, I press on to the highest calling I know, to be all that Jesus Christ intends me to be.” If he had to suffer starvation to further the cause of Christ, he was thankful. If he had to endure prison to further the cause of Christ, he was thankful. If he was rejected and whipped because he stood up for Christ, he was thankful.

You see, he didn’t measure his thankfulness by how well things were going in his life, as many of us do. If we’re promoted this week, we’re thankful. If we’re fired this week, we’re resentful. Paul would see either circumstance as an opportunity to praise God.

Paul lived by a higher purpose than whether or not he had an extra box of Little Debbies in the cupboard, or whether or not he was able to buy that new bass boat he had wanted for so long to go out on Lake Galilee.

A woman who works as a bookkeeper in a bank tells about an elderly lady who came to her desk one day, obviously ecstatic. “Honey, I don’t need those praying hands on my checks anymore,” she said. “I ordered them while I was looking for a husband after my Albert died. Well, I found one, so I don’t need that design now. Just get me some butterflies or flowers.”

How often our purpose in life is no larger than finding another spouse or buying a new house. It’s not until, like Paul, that we sense a greater purpose for our lives, that we begin to develop a grateful attitude, because we begin to see our heavenly Father using all things for our good, even those things which appear to be destructive. Paul knew his purpose was to use his talents and each day to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. He saw each day as another gift of life and opportunity. But this was not the only way Paul filled himself with thanksgiving.

Paul filled every prayer with thanksgiving.

He advises the Philippians to “Not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplica­tion with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). Notice he said, “In everything” … not merely when God had answered a prayer or a sup­plication, but even while we are making the prayer or supplication.

Dick Van Dyke once told of a little boy who was eating with his parents at the home of an elderly gentleman. After watching the old man bow his head and speak in a soft voice, the boy asked his mother, “What did Mr. Bryan say to his plate?” For many folks, prayer is a mumbled ritual. For Paul, it was so much more.

It is indeed possible to fill every prayer with thanksgiving. Let’s say that you are praying to God to help your son or grandson with a problem of friends trying to influence him in a negative way. Your usual prayer might go something like this:

“Lord, I ask you to protect my son from any influences that would separate him from you or those who care so much about him. In Jesus Name. Amen.”

Now, try it with thanksgiving:

“Lord, I thank you for the gift of my son, his love, his talents, his keen mind, his common sense, even though he doesn’t always use it. I thank you that you love him more than I ever could and have a wonderful plan for his life. I thank you for his faith and the gift of your Holy Spirit who seeks to guide him every day in the right path, even when I can’t be there with him. Give him courage to stand firm against all that would influence him in a negative way. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

See the difference? I’m asking for the same thing, but my prayer is filled with a grateful attitude for what God has already given my son. He may make some wrong choices, but, if I keep praying like this, God can take even the wrong choices and work them together for his good.

There are many other lessons Paul taught us about filling our hearts with thanksgiving. But for now, let’s look at our lives this week in terms of what our purpose is. Ask God to show you his purpose for you, a purpose that is greater than day to day circumstances.

And then begin to pray with thanksgiving.