What do you like most about Thanksgiving? Getting together with family and friends for turkey dinner? Enjoying one last camping trip? Just having an extra day off? Whatever it is you enjoy about Thanksgiving, you’re sure to hear, read, or share reflections about some of the finest and most enjoyable things in life—things that are worth being thankful for.
Usually when you’re thankful for something, there’s someone to thank. When you’re invited for a thanksgiving feast, you’re certainly thankful for the well-cooked bird, the tasty stuffing and the carefully chosen wine. But you also have someone to thank—the host who invited you to share in the feast.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers. Psalm 24: 1,2 (ESV)
Thanksgiving, true to its name, is a time to give thanks. But how do you give thanks if there’s nobody to thank? In other words, is it really possible to be thankful without having someone to thank?
The Apostle James wrote this in the Christian Holy Scriptures: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
(James 1:17 ESV) As a God-fearing Jew, James undoubtedly wrote this with Psalm 24 in mind: The earth is the LORD’S, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.
My wife and children, my friends and loved ones, my church and country, and everything else I cherish as my own, are only mine because God has given them all to me. I don’t just have so much to be thankful for; I also have someone to thank—God himself!
But of everything that I call my own, there’s nothing more precious to me than my God. He has made me his own by giving himself to me in Jesus, the Saviour. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 ESV) Of all the gifts to be had, he is the Gift that no one can do without. It is this Gift, the greatest of all, which God promises to everyone who acknowledges him as the only and perfect Giver.
There certainly is someone to thank, and the God and Father of Christ is the One!