Here we are again, another Thanksgiving season – this is my 61st year celebrating this holiday. Every year, at this season, I like to address the topic of being thankful. No need to break the string now! The character trait of being thankful is right to have because it strikes at one of the key elements necessary for success in the human person, attitude.

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Ephesians 5:20 (KJV)
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

If Being Thankful is Anything, Its Attitude

• There is a danger of things becoming commonplace.
• And, an existing danger of things being taken for granted.
• There is a danger in thinking that people owe you.
• That you don’t have to say thank you because people ought to do such and so for you.
• Being thankful is an attitude.
• Someone years ago coined this phrase ‘An Attitude of Gratitude.’

What We Know about Having A Thankful Attitude

A Thankful Attitude Can Be Taught

• Which means if your not good at it, you can school yourself into having one.
• Remember this, anything that you have learned must be reinforced constantly.
• Things, by reason of disuse, get foggy in the memory.
• How many of you remember the Algebra that you were taught in school?
• Trust me I have forgotten whole years of things that I was taught in school.
• It’s easy to forget to be thankful unless you reinforce this attitude in your life.
• Here’s an illustration along this line.

Did You Forget God During Thanksgiving?

One Thanksgiving season a family was seated around their table, looking at the annual holiday bird. From the oldest to the youngest, they were to express their praise. When they came to the 5-year-old in the family, he began by looking at the turkey and expressing his thanks to the turkey, saying although he had not tasted it he knew it would be good. After that rather novel expression of thanksgiving, he began with a more predictable line of credits, thanking his mother for cooking the turkey and his father for buying the turkey. But then he went beyond that. He joined together a whole hidden multitude of benefactors, linking them with cause and effect.    He said, “I thank you for the checker at the grocery store who checked out the turkey. And, I thank you for the grocery store people who put it on the shelf. I thank you for the farmer who made it fat. And, I thank you for the man who made the feed. I thank you for those who brought the turkey to the store.”

Using his Columbo-like little mind, he traced the turkey all the way from its origin to his plate. And then at the end, he solemnly said: “Did I leave anybody out?”
His 2-year-older brother, embarrassed by all those proceedings, said, “God.” Solemnly and without being flustered at all, the 5-year-old said, “I was about to get to him.”

• Well, isn’t that the question about which we ought to think at Thanksgiving time?
• Are we really going to get to God this Thanksgiving?
• Did you leave anybody out this Thanksgiving?  Like the Lord?

A Thankful Attitude Can Be Caught

• Which means if you don’t have one, get around somebody who does.
• A thankful attitude is contagious.

Matthew Henry’s Thankful Attitude

Matthew Henry, the famous Bible scholar, was once accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse. He wrote these words in his diary: “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, and not someone else.”

• There’s plenty of good things that you can model after from looking at a person like Matthew Henry.
• But, the most positive person you can be around is God.
• God will never tell you can’t achieve.
• He will never tell you can’t make it.
• The Lord will never tell you it’s the other guy’s fault.
• He has the best attitude of anybody you’ll ever meet.
• All of which leads me to the next point.

Being Thankful Is Having Your Value System Intact

• Did you notice what Matthew Henry said?
• He said I am thankful although they took my purse they did not take my life.
• What a person is thankful for and what a person gets mad about or grieved about is a litmus test for where they are in this area.
• How many of you would have ever been angry about some money you may have lost?
• Or maybe got ticked about a car which was destroyed in an accident?
• You walked away but the car didn’t.
• Do you remember the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah?
• How he made a choice to go down into that city?
• And, how that choice turned out to be a really bad choice?
• Did you notice how the Lord was merciful to him and sent the angels to get him out?
• Did you notice how Lot lingered when the angels told him to leave and how the angels literally grabbed him by the hand and lead him out of town?
  • Read Genesis 19 for all the rest of this story.
• Did you notice how Lot was lead out but his stuff, his possessions; his wealth were all left behind?
• How many of you would have been grieved about the stuff you lost instead of being thankful for your life that was spared?

A Couple Who Lost Their House

A few years ago, a couple lost their house in a fire. Fortunately, they were able to snatch all the kids out just before the whole thing collapsed. They stood out on the sidewalk hugging and kissing and thanking God. Why? Because despite the fact that they had lost their shelter, they had not lost their treasure, which was their kids.

• What is it that sets you off?
• Compare that to what it is that you are thankful for.
• Whatever it is, is an indicator of your value system.
• Notice this other point on this whole Sodom and Gomorrah theme with Lot.
• There are some things in your life that need to be destroyed and you ought to be thankful about those things being removed from your life.
• Lot was headed straight down the tubes along with his whole family.
• Remember what Jesus said?

John 12:24 (KJV)
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

• In order for you to have a harvest, in order for you to have flowers, there has to be a seed that dies.
• Many times when a negative thing happens to us, we get upset and our thanksgiving unto God falls off.
• It happens when we grieve over the death of something in our lives.

Shipwrecked

A ship was wrecked, and the only survivor washed up on a small uninhabited island. He was exhausted. He cried out to God to save him. Every day he scanned the horizon, searching for help. Finally, he managed to build a rough hut and put his few articles in that hut. One day, coming home from hunting for food, he was stung with grief to see his little hut in flames and a cloud of smoke. The worst had happened. But early the next day, a ship drew in and rescued him.  He asked the crew, “How did you know I was here?”  They replied, “We saw your smoke signal.”

• Maybe the burning that is in your life now is simply a smoke signal to blessing?

Sometimes Bad Things Happen to Good People

• Also, there is the other side of this.
• Sometimes bad thing’s do happen to good people.
• This is a sinful world we live in.
• Sharon had an aneurysm, seventeen years ago.
• I didn’t thank God she had it.
• It was a bad thing happening to a good person.
• What I am thankful for every day is that  God brought her out of it.
• You may not like the burning or feel much like being thankful when bad things happen to good people.
• If so, consider the example of the Pilgrims.

The Example of the Pilgrims

The Pilgrims would not fully understand in their lifetime the reason for the suffering that beset them. The first official Thanksgiving Day occurred as a unique holy day in 1621. It took place in the fall of that year. Along with the holy day came lingering memories of the difficult, terrible winter they experienced a few months before. Scores and scores of babies and children and young people and adults had starved to death. One-half of them died the first year.

Many of the Pilgrims had gotten to a point where they were even ready to go back to England. They had climbed into a ship and were in that harbor heading back to England, ready to give up. However, a ship containing medical supplies and food arrived and restored their hope, and they went back to live in the midst of those adverse sufferings. And yet, despite the hardships, they came to that first Thanksgiving with the spirit of giving and of sharing.

• Here is their proclamation.

PILGRIMS PROCLAMATION

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience;

Now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the daytime, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. – William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony, 1623

• Even in the midst of adversity, you can find something to be thankful for.
• Consider Abraham Lincoln’s example of thankfulness.

Lincoln’s Example of Being Thankful

At 7 years of age, his family lost their home, and he went to work. When he was 9, his mother died. He lost his job as a store clerk when he was 20. He wanted to go to law school, but he didn’t have the education. At age 23 he went into debt to be a partner in a small store. Three years later the business partner died, and the resulting debt took years to repay.

At 28, he asked the girl he had courted for four years to marry him. She said no. On his third try he was elected to Congress, at age 37, but then failed to be re-elected. His son died at 4 years of age. When this man was 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. At age 47 he ran for the vice-presidency and lost. But, at age 51, he became president of the United States.

• Abraham Lincoln learned to move beyond the face discouragement.
• Did you know that it was Abraham Lincoln who, in the midst of the Civil War, in 1863, established the annual celebration of Thanksgiving?
• Lincoln had learned how important it is to stop and thank God in the midst of great difficulties.
• Here is his Thanksgiving Address,

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Address

It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. – Thanksgiving proclamation, 1863, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

What Are You Thankful to God For?

• Here’s my Top Ten List of What I am Thankful For:

One: The Godhead

• My heavenly Father who loved me
• My Savior Jesus who died for me that I might be saved.
• The Holy Spirit, my friend and my helper in life.
• He has constantly directing me into the right way to go.

Two: The Bible

• A book God left behind, prepared especially for me, that I might not be confused.
• That I might learn to appreciate and prize and value what is really important in life.

Three: My Family

• My wife Sharon who, after 37 years of marriage, is still sweet on me.
• The children, Jessica, Tami, E.J., and Kristi who put up with my idiosyncrasies.
• My four grandchildren, Halen, Torin, Lahna, and Emery the 3rd.
• The dog Kobalt who is happy to see me every day of his life.

Four: The Will of God

• That there is a plan for me. And that His plan is constantly unfolding.

Five: Simplicity

• The longer I live – the more I understand that the things that really count are the simple things.
• Like Loving God and loving my neighbor

Six: Second Chances

• I’m thankful to God we get one
• I am thankful to God we get more than one.
• Where would you be if God didn’t give you a second chance?

Seven: Things Money Can Buy

• Home
• Cars
• Clothes
• Food
• I remember when I didn’t have some of them.

Eight: Things Money Can’t Buy

• Life
• Health
• Strength
• Spiritual Gifts
• Personality

Nine: The Future

• That I have one and that it’s good.
• Heaven and all that comes with it.
• The great unknown.

Ten: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

• The Good that God has brought me and is yet bringing me into.
• The Bad that God has brought me out of.
• The Ugly that He is yet keeping me from.

Here’s an Example of Someone’s Top Ten List of What They Are Thankful For

• This Thanksgiving I’m thankful …

1. That there aren’t twice as many Congressman and half as many doctors.
2. That grass doesn’t grow through snow, necessitating winter mowing as well as shoveling.
3. That there are only twenty-four hours available each day for TV programming.
4. That teenagers ultimately will have children who will become teenagers.
5. That I’m not a turkey.
6. That houses still cost more than cars.
7. That the space available for messages on T-shirts and bumpers has limits.
8. That snow covers unraked leaves.
9. That hugs and kisses don’t add weight or cause cancer.
10. That record players and radios and TV sets and washers and mixers and lights have off switches but that no one can turn off the moon and stars.

Call to Action:

What is your top ten list? Write one out for yourself.

Question: What is your top ten list of things that you are thankful for? Please leave your list in the comments section below.

Becoming The Good Man God Wants You To Be

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