Being thankful merits a Thanksgiving holiday in the USA and Canada. But how often is thanksgiving actually practiced by Americans on Thanksgiving and otherwise? Most Americans I know will stuff themselves with turkey dinner, spend time with family, watch football, and so on. But will they spend 5 minutes thanking God for His blessings?
Maybe not.
I’m convinced that most Christians don’t think gratitude is all that important. How do I know this? Because I’ve been to hundreds of prayer gatherings and seen how much focus is on prayers of request as opposed to prayers of praise and gratitude. Often thankfulness is totally
overlooked.
Yet being thankful is commanded over and over in the Bible. For example, Psalm 50:22-23
says:
Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
Being thankful is so important that Pastor M. Craig Barnes wrote in The Pastor as Minor Poet, “I doubt that there is such a thing as a measure of spirituality, but if there is, gratitude would be it. Only the grateful are paying attention. They are grateful because they pay attention, and they pay attention
because they are so grateful.”
In this podcast episode, I explain why being thankful is so important, and how to express gratitude:
