Thanks Living

Thanksgiving Day is here!  Today Americans will be filling up their bellies and flipping on their tellies.  Our citizenry will be stuffing themselves in the same manner as they've stuffed the traditional turkey, accompanied with enough carbs to put us into a food coma (by the way, it's not the tryptophan, which the body uses to produce serotonin that results in the post-turkey nap - other food contain it as well; it's the combination of so many carbs with the bird).

Nevertheless, carbs and proteins and fats be as they may, in the tradition of our Pilgrim Fathers and according to Presidential Proclamation actually began by George Washington, following a resolution of congress, setting aside Thursday the 28th of November 1789 as a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer."  It is a day for families to come together to celebrate the blessings of God, even in this post-Christian period of our history.  Not everyone will recognize God's hand in our national abundance but many, if not most, still do to one degree or another.

However, there is an ever-growing number of Americans that feel more entitled than blessed.  They feel that food, housing, education, medical care and even cell phones are their right.  As such, rather than thankfulness, they feel denied their fair share of the abundance they see others enjoy.  But, before we point our fingers and cluck our tongues at that subset of our population, we might want to check our thanksgiving factor.

Those who are game-fully employed often grumble at how much taxes are taken for so little return.  Our very system of taxation is set up to encourage us to find ways to pay as little as possible.  And, the more one makes, it seems the more one can get out of paying.  Regardless, it is our very abundance that causes us to be tax-payers.  If we weren't so blessed, we wouldn't be so taxed.  I have to say that it would make it more palatine if our government spending wasn't out of control.

What I am getting to is that, in a country that enjoys a standard of living that cannot even be imagined by mot of the world, we struggle being truly thankful.  And, I believe it is due to the fact that our National Day of Thanksgiving doesn't translate into National Days Thanks Living.  365 days a year, we live in abundance, even the poor among are afforded blessings denied the majority of people living on planet earth.  Yet, so many feel so stressed instead of blessed.

Why?  I believe it is because we are out of focus.  We tend to focus on what we don't have  instead of what we are blessed with.  I grew up poor but I remember my Mother teaching us to "count your many blessings."  She would say there are others who would love to trade with us.  She taught Jesus' truth that "The eye is the lamp of the body.  If the eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light" (Mt 6:22).

In other words, if we focus on good things, we will fill blessed and, in turn, we will have a healthy attitude toward life and the Giver of Life.  We will begin to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess 5:18).  We will be Thanks Living as we continually thank God, living daily trusting him instead of feeling frustrated at what other do or not do.  Jus' Say'n.