Thanks-giving vs. Thanks-feeling

A few years ago, on the weekend before Thanksgiving, I had to go out of town for a funeral. It was about five hours away, and the family of the deceased offered to put me up in a hotel the night before, which was very nice of them. But I was too cranky to be grateful. I was cranky about being away from my family on a weekend, and cranky about being at the Hampton Inn. There was a time in my life when I would have thought the Hampton Inn was the Hilton, but time, privilege, and comfort have softened me. Now that I’ve actually stayed at the Hilton, I know for a fact that the Hampton Inn ain’t the Hilton.

The worst thing about staying at the Hampton Inn is the breakfast. I know I don’t have to eat it, but it’s free, so I can never find the strength to turn it down. That Saturday morning, I went to the lobby and started loading my plate. In case you don’t already know, the only thing worth eating at the Hampton Inn are the waffles, but the waffle iron was broken, which didn’t help my crankiness. I also prefer light roast coffee, but all they had that morning was dark roast…and it tasted like it was a few days old. To top it all off, the bacon was slimy and undercooked.

As I sat down to eat, I noticed a couple sitting at the table next to me. Both the husband and the wife appeared to be in their seventies, and they bore a striking resemblance to Wilford Brimley and Ma Kettle. As I began to eat my cardboard hotcakes, the man reached across the table with both hands, and his wife met him halfway, and he said an out-loud prayer right there in the lobby of the Hampton Inn. I could tell it was the same prayer – word for word – he’d probably said before, tens of thousands of times at their dinner table: something like, “Lord we ask that you pardon our sins, make us thankful for this food and for the hands that prepared it. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”

Two thoughts came to mind as I watched them pray. First, I thought, “Don’t bother blessing this food; it’s irredeemable.” And second, I thought to myself, “That’s cute. How sweet. Bless their little hearts.” I confess that my heart wasn’t in the best place at that moment (I blame the slimy bacon) because my posture toward that couple and their prayer was one of condescension.

I began to feel guilty for patronizing people who were clearly doing what the Bible says to do over a hundred times: to give thanks to your Father in heaven for everything (Ephesians 5:7). In my cynicism, I reduced their gratitude to nothing more than a platitude, but the truth is that biblical gratitude goes far beyond hollow pleasantries.

Two things really stand out about the kind of gratitude God wants from us. First, biblical gratitude is almost exclusively about God. I can’t identify more than one or two instances in the Bible that call people to be thankful toward other people. Instead, the Bible urges believers to be grateful primarily (if not exclusively) to God.

Second, the Bible says to be thankful in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18). Gratitude isn’t just being thankful to God when good things happen, but giving thanks to God, no matter what. Does God really expect us to be thankful when things don’t go our way? Or when we’re stuck on the West Loop at 5:30 in the afternoon? Or when you’ve got 20 pounds to lose…and Thanksgiving is next week?

Unequivocally, yes.

Psalm 100 says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.” This psalm was written at least eight hundred years before the birth of Jesus, during the Iron Age, an especially tumultuous time in Middle Eastern history that was marked by war, violence, and disease. Almost half of all babies born didn’t live to see their fifth birthday. Almost a quarter of pregnant women didn’t survive childbirth. Poverty was everywhere; most people ate two meals a day, and it was always the same. In the morning, you ate bread dipped in vinegar, maybe a few olives, and some figs if you were lucky. In the evening, more bread dipped in vinegar, a portion of chickpea stew, and a cup of wine or unpasteurized milk.

Can we all agree that sounds awful? But it was in those awful circumstances that God called His people to enter His gates with thanksgiving. Thanks-giving is impervious to one’s circumstances, and it occurs to me that, all too often, my gratitude looks more like thanks-feeling, because I typically choose to be thankful based on how I feel about my circumstances.

Researchers have studied the effects of gratitude on human life for years, and it won’t surprise you to learn that being thankful is good for your health. What surprised me, though, was what happened when they began to study the health benefits of giving thanks, over just feeling thankful. People who say they feel grateful aren’t necessarily any healthier than those who don’t feel grateful. But people who express their thanks by writing cards, making calls, and sending gifts are healthier and happier than people who feel thankful but do nothing about it. If you just feel thankful without ever expressing it, the person you’re thankful for will never know it, and they will perceive your lack of expression as a lack of gratitude. Gratitude must be expressed in order to make a difference.

And therein lies the secret of thanksgiving. If gratitude is merely a feeling to you, you will find it a little harder each day to feel thankful for what you have and eventually you’ll begin to feel anxious about what you don’t have. As long as gratitude is just a feeling, you’ll be condemned to always feel entitled to something more. You find yourself feeling cranky for the silliest of reasons: like a broken waffle iron and mediocre dark roast coffee at a breakfast you didn’t even pay for.

As I thought about that couple this week, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I interpreted their prayer all wrong. I no longer believe they were just being polite when they stopped to give thanks at the Hampton Inn; I think they knew something most of us don’t: they knew that prayer they prayed every day was part of the reason why they’re still alive, and still together, after all these years. That prayer wasn’t just a habit; it was their way of keeping Evil at bay and waging war against the Enemy, who would much rather have them complaining about the coffee than pausing to give thanks to God.

Thanksgiving isn’t just good manners; it’s rebellion against the sense of entitlement that tells us what we have isn’t enough. Thanksgiving is about crying tears of joy for everything God has already given you, because, like that breakfast at Hampton Inn, His grace is free (but infinitely more satisfying).

Thanks-giving is the difference between enduring life and enjoying life. So don’t just feel thankful this Thanksgiving holiday. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!