Happy Thanksgiving!

This weekend is a holiday deeply rooted in our traditions and our past. Coming from a society with a Christian world view and an agricultural base, Thanksgiving is traditionally a time when we thank God for the harvest of this summer’s growing season.

As a culture we have drifted from our agricultural base and our Christian world view. Both of these drifts make the thankfulness of Thanks giving a fuzzy thing. This fuzziness is revealed as we answer two questions so I invite you to look at these two questions with me.

Question one: What are you thankful for?

Stop right now and make a list. See if you can identify 5-7 things to be thankful for. While you are thinking about your list I will begin mine.

I am thankful for my family. They are a great source of joy and challenge. They are the best learning lab about love, honesty, self-sacrifice and forgiveness.

I am thankful for my health. Well at least I am relatively healthy for a 58-year-old.

I am thankful for my work. It is a good think to get up every morning and feel that I am doing something with purpose and meaning.

I am thankful for my home. Sure it comes with maintenance and effort but it is a place to be “at home.”

I am thankful for the friendships I have made this first year or so in New Glasgow.

I am thankful for the loving Church family that we have become part of this past year.

I am thankful for Jesus Christ who lives in eternity as my Saviour and who has given me His Spirit as a guide for life. He is the source of my hope for this world.

So that’s my list. It is a result of my life circumstances but is also shaped by my world view as a person of Christian Faith. Family, relationships, purpose, belonging, hope these are all facets of Faith in Jesus Christ.

So take a look at your list of things that you are thankful for and ask yourself how they reflect your world view.

Question two: To whom are you thankful?

When you stop to think, meditate and or reflect on your thankfulness, to whom do you say thanks? This is a very real question and it may make us feel uncomfortable with our answers.

If I were an atheist, who believe only in the natural world, science and the evolutionary process, I might conclude that who I am and what I have is a result of the process of natural selection and there is no one to thank and no real need for Thanksgiving.

In fact as I think through the world views that I am aware of, I find nothing that fits the holiday of Thanksgiving as well as the Christian world view. It is a view of a Creator God who became one of us to bring forgiveness for our failings, to restore relationship with the divine. A God who invites us to live by his Kingdom values and connects with us through a written record (the Bible) by His Spirit.

Thanksgiving is a great time to come to church and reconnect with this Creator God and people who experience Him.