It is the week of Thanksgiving, a time to gather with loved ones, sit around a table filled with delicious food and hopefully spend a little time thinking about what it is we are grateful for.
Thanksgiving isn’t thought of as a religious holiday, per se, as one doesn’t have to profess to be a faithful person to be thankful. That is to be sure.
But I would hold up that part of being faithful is to be grateful.
Just ask the Apostle Paul, who wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
In a letter that was meant to encourage Christians in Thessalonica to continue growing in their faith, Paul specifically mentions rejoicing, praying and giving thanks as ways to grow their relationship with God.
Friends, I am often stunned by the level of discontentment among those who live in America, one of the richest nations in history.
Growing up without much, the older I get, the more I realize that I have come to own and have access to more than a childhood Devlyn could have ever imagined. Which generally means that my gratitude bar is pretty low, and so I find myself being thankful for something most days.
And this feeling has only grown since I took a position three months ago with a local mission that serves those who are unhoused and face food scarcity.
But the irony is that our guests, the very people who have little to nothing to their name, have been the ones to actually teach me about gratitude.
Turns out that when finding a warm place to sleep for the night and a simple meal to fill your growling stomach are your primary concerns, your gratitude for the small things grows in direct proportion.
Our guests’ gratitude humbles me every day, and it has done much to reorder my own priorities in the past three months, even when I thought I was a pretty thankful person.
If gratitude, as the Apostle Paul writes, brings us in closer relationship with God. Then the guests whom we serve must be among the most faithful people I know.
Friends, don’t fall for the trap that post-modern society tries to sell us. Most of us actually have everything we need, but we are tricked into believing that we need more. Worse yet, we are influenced to believe that “getting” is a competition, and whoever gets the most wins. All this does is breed more discontentment.
It turns out that the most grateful people I’ve ever come to find myself surrounded by own what fits in a backpack and just want a warm place to sleep and something to stop the gnawing in their belly. Amen.
Devlyn Brooks is the interim CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at [email protected].