A cursory search of the English Standard Version of the Bible  reveals some 35 references and usages of the word translated “thanksgiving.” At the heart of meaning on this term in the Old Testament, it indicates that a person would open their mouth and utter words of blessing, gratitude, and thanks for obvious blessings and favor upon a person’s life. Intentionality would be a key thought – I choose to express thanks as opposed to when I feel like it. The focus in the Old Testament certainly is Godward. The New Testament takes this term and dramatically imposes upon us the meaning and purposes for Thanksgiving. The term translated “thanksgiving” is derived from the actual term “Eucharist.” The Eucharist embodies the highest form of thanks because it moves from focusing on our stuff to God’s plan – Jesus Christ our Savior by means of the shedding of blood forgives our sins so that we may be adopted into His family as sons and daughters. WOW! Thanksgiving moves our attention away from our stuff to God’s plan for eternity.

With these thoughts as a backdrop, it becomes obvious that thanksgiving has lost true purpose moving from a daily acknowledgement of God’s plan to entitlements. Counselor Craig Lounsbrough from Denver, Colorado makes some interesting observations that are noteworthy.

 A Sense of Entitlement – The true spirit of thanksgiving is contrary to entitlement. Somewhere deep within us our culture grooms and grows us for entitlement. When that is seeded then our attitude moves from gratefulness to entitlement. If I am entitled then where is the need for thanksgiving? If I am owed and it is in fact mine to claim, why thanksgiving? As this spirit grows it becomes not the product of anything that produced it.  It is a product of our entitlement.  This being the case, it should simply be; and if it should be, and in the being it should be ours, why the need for thankfulness?

 Our Lost Sense of Privilege – In abundance, we tend to assume abundance.  “Life is just this way,” we think. It’s natural. It just is. What is in actuality a profound blessing is seen as the norm; even the mundane.  Food should always be in abundance on the shelves in the grocery. An endless array of products should adorn the aisles of every store we enter.  Water and electricity should be there at our beck and call; never failing to respond to a turn of the tap or a flip of the switch regardless of the time of day.  Whatever our needs (as complex and multiple as they are) the resources for those needs should be within easy reach or at least easily attainable. What about the other two-thirds of the worlds’ population that has no comprehension of this kind of privilege? What do we say to then? In regaining our sense of privilege we regain our sense of thankfulness!

 Our Sense of Speed – It’s always about the next thing . . . whether it’s our relentless attempts to achieve the next thing or our dreadful fear that the “next thing” will never happen.  Whatever the case might be, we live in a culture that’s programmed for extreme fast-forward.  We move so insanely fast that we often forget where we’ve been and we have trouble keeping track of how far we are from where we want to go.  There is no time for reflection or to put down roots.  Most of our lives move in a wild fury of crazed momentum, flinging and flailing forward, or in some direction. We don’t have time to be thankful.  In the blur of it all, we most often can’t even remember the things or the people or the events that flew by us that we should be thankful for.

 Our Lost Sense of Wonder – We have opted to see life as that which we control and manage, rather than that which moves in mysterious and unexpected ways.  We no longer marvel, rather we manipulate.  As children, we looked wide-eyed at a world brimming with wonders.  Now we analyze, dissect and create action-plans to control it all; sterilizing life into a wondrous oblivion.  In the end we control just enough to give us an illusion that we control it all, or most of it anyway.  In reality, we don’t. So we lose the miraculous because we only pay attention to it to the degree that we can control it.  The truly astounding flows right by us because it’s not something that we made or can control so it doesn’t hit our radar.  The world is brimming with phenomenal wonders that leave plenty of room for a sense of thankfulness if we simply allow the miraculous to be the miraculous.

There are some obvious adjustments that must be made. Start by relinquishing our entitlement mentality. Recapture a sense of wonder and awe. Readjust the speed at which we live our life. Vigorously adjust a sense of privilege. Stir these components together vigorously to recapture true thanksgiving – The Eucharist! Christ paid a debt He did not owe and I owed a debt that I could not pay! Thank you Jesus for my salvation!