Voltaire, the radical revolutionary and atheist Frenchman preferred persons in official capacity in his household to be Christians. He found a Christian servant could be better trusted not to pilfer, not to violate his or her assignment than those who did not believe in God. He recognized that Christians had a value system superior to the persons who had no deliberate guide for their lives. Numerous sophisticates have echoed the same sentiment. Humanists, accounting honestly for human conduct, have no place to go to find values except to their own accountings. If scientifically oriented, humanists say that they believe that science will ultimately account for what is moral and right. At the time of this writing the effort continues, but the results are elusive. In Volume 1 we addressed, on Thanksgiving, the same issue in the life of Daniel, living centuries before Christ. The king described the qualities he wanted in the administration of the kingdom. He found those qualities in devout persons like Daniel, and raised them to positions of authority. We remember that Daniel and his friends were Hebrews displaced to Babylon with slave status.
In adaptation to history, a Christian would rather be a Daniel than a Nebuchadnezzar, an Apostle Peter than a Caesar, a pious peasant than a self-made mogul. One of the reasons for such choices relates to deep appreciation – to thanksgiving. One tends to give thanks to whatever powers there may be for the privilege of living, even if living is in difficult straits. For many the only powers that may be are found within themselves, and a spirit of thanksgiving becomes an inner resource lifting us above circumstances. When persons do not possess even a humanistic spirit of thanksgiving, they may move along to murky ends. The better juices do not flow, attitudes decline – even health may seep away. The smile fades, energy declines, perhaps in lost hope. When we are thankful there is at least the hope that some mysterious virtue will enter the system and things will be better down the road. Mankind needs the sacred humility of thanksgiving.
For the Christian there is a marvelous mystery in thanksgiving. It is revealed in the writings of Moses where virtue was enhanced as a special offering of Thanksgiving, and that was related to peace. (Leviticus 7) Going through Scripture one finds thanksgiving related to prayer, song, sacrifice (both ceremonial and personal), and to the various approaches to God and life. For example, a person may be offered something to eat. He does not prefer what is provided. He is to eat the meal, with thanksgiving. This does not mean the thanksgiving is approval of the cuisine. It means that one is thankful that there is something that someone, under God, has cared enough to provide. The guest didn’t have to forage for it. Most important, this is what God has provided for this occasion. If his preference was for something other than this, he would have provided it. Thanksgiving is a sacrifice (gift) to God, related to his will in our lives. Scripture even expresses the idea as David put it in the Psalms:[to] sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving. (Psalm 107:22 – KJV) The redundancy is quite deliberate – the spiritual made natural to life benefit.
There is something special about thanksgiving in devout Christians. The Apostle Paul made it clear to Timothy when he said that nothing is to be rejected if it can be received with Christian thanksgiving. (1Timothy 4:3) The implication in this and other passages is that prayer must have thanksgiving in it to be effective, and that effective prayer provides something special in protection from that which might become negative for us. Thanksgiving becomes an effective means for inviting blessing, if the first person addressed is God. He uses it for our benefit. We repeatedly remind ourselves that God needs nothing from us, but we feel we must return something in recognition and to keep some balance in all. Those factors are met in prayer – prayer which comforts us. It gives us our own recognition and acceptance in the context of the retinue and order of both creation and the kingdom of God. All this becomes simple in the opportunity to give genuine thanksgiving to God, and others, for the evidence of relationships. This is a part of the thinkliving pattern that honors God, encourages others, and helps us know ourselves. The ancients of Scripture found the factor to be effective for comfort, love, even in hard-scrabble living. We may be thankful in our circumstances, but circumstances do not determine thankfulness. Thanksgiving needs to become a part of our nature. It helps make us affirmative to life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020