With Thanksgiving just around the corner, here are seven really good reasons to be thankful.
1. Your life is a gift. You did nothing to give yourself life…and practically you are doing nothing to keep yourself alive. Yes, I know you are eating, breathing, and avoiding generally stupid things like tying weather balloons to your lawn chair. But for all intents and purposes, you were given life as a gift and you are being kept alive by a power outside of your control. Your heart is beating at 60 beats a minute pumping 1.5 gallons of blood throughout your body…your lungs are breathing 11ml of oxygen a minute, oxygenating your blood…300 millions cells in your body are dying per minute and being miraculously regenerated…and 200 billion neurons are firing 1000 impulses per second throughout your body, enabling you to think and to function…all outside of your control. You are a walking wonder…fearfully and wonderfully made…and fearfully and wonderfully sustained.
2. Thankfulness is at the heart of relationship with God. Your life is a gift and God is the giver. The most basic spiritual response that you can have is to be thankful…to be humble enough to see your dependency…your creatureliness…your limitations…and to acknowledge His power…His sovereignty…His goodness…and His grace. Thankfulness is at the heart of faith…and thankfulness is the very breath of worship.
Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. (Psalm 100:3-4)
3. Thankfulness is good for your health. The science is compelling…gratitude lowers stress, lowers blood pressure, improves sleep, reduces fatigue, strengthens your immune system, and helps heal your heart. One medical study on people with heart damage showed that practicing daily thanksgiving reduced inflammation in the body and improved heart rhythms. Quite simply…”Gratitude is good medicine” (Dr. Robert Emmons).
4. Thankfulness improves your relationships with others. Saying “thanks” is probably the simplest way to acknowledge the importance of others in your life, spread encouragement, and strengthen relationships. Research shows that expressing thanks benefits both the receiver and the giver. Of course, it doesn’t take much scientific study to realize that complaining, grumbling, whining, criticizing, and murmuring doesn’t help your relationships. So if you want to take the first step in restoring or strengthening a relationship, then a good place to start would be a well thought out, heart-felt expression of thanks.
5. Thankfulness gives you a better perspective. It is too easy to complain. It seems to come naturally. We tend to look at what is wrong with life rather than at what is good. And the 24/7 news media…with its constant cacophony of negative, partisan, angry, cynical, crisis-driven, crime-focused coverage…certainly doesn’t help. But stopping the griping and instead counting your blessings forces you to see things differently. Your focus changes. Your perspective changes. And your attitude changes.
6. Thankfulness leads to joy. It is interesting that the Greek language has three words in the same linguistic family. Grace (charis)…thanksgiving (eucharisteo)…and joy (chara). Biblically these three words go together. Realizing that everything I have is a gift of God’s grace leads to thanksgiving which leads to joy. And again, science affirms this truth. Gratitude (which comes from the Latin word for “grace,” by the way) is one of the most reliable, cost-free methods at our disposal for lowering anxiety and depression and increasing happiness and life satisfaction.
7. Thankfulness leads to life. More than just enhancing our life on earth, I believe true thankfulness can lead to life eternal. At the heart of the gospel is the simple truth that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins in order to offer us the free gift of eternal life. The only way to receive a precious gift…a gift that you don’t deserve…a gift that you can’t afford…a gift that you literally can’t live without…is with a humble, thankful heart.
That is the heart of faith.
Rejoice always;
pray without ceasing;
in everything give thanks;
for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
