The Power of Thanksgiving: Can We Really Be Thankless and Still Be Free?

Word from the Center
Written By Mark Frith

Blessed Thanksgiving.  Happy Thanksgiving if you still allow the practice of giving thanks in your home.  Each year in November there seems to be more and more Americans advocating for the eradication of the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Why? More Americans are convinced that equating Thanksgiving with oppression, colonization, and the glorification of gluttony should cause us to abandon the holiday for insidious roots. They say we are better than that. And trusting in God only seems to indicate a certain weakness in humans that should be done away with.  So, you might wonder just how long will it be before thanksgiving disappears from our cultural experience?

 For Christians the idea of being thankful does not stem from a position of having achieved success as human beings.  Also, thanksgiving is not a celebration of human ingenuity or progressive station, though there are some noble pursuits.  Consider in the last few years one of the mantras of a charitable foundation for fighting childhood cancer is one that you may be familiar with: “We won't stop until no child dies from cancer.” How could one not help but give thanks when a person’s life is preserved? 

 The Christian, though, knows that she or he owes their entirety of life, purpose, and joy, to the creative and preservative powers of the Lord God Almighty.  There is freedom in knowing that “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”  For when God’s got all of this, the Christian is freed from worrying over the small things in life, let alone the really big things.  You see there can be an overwhelming sense of gratitude that allows a person to work for good, but not just for the here and now, but for the forever. Thankfulness and thanksgiving comes when humans know that there is a God, and even more to quote from Father Cavanaugh in the movie, Rudy, “Son, in all my years of religious study I’ve come up with two inconvertible facts: there is a God and I am not him.” 

 However, what happens in American culture when God is left behind, forgotten?  That seems to be what’s on the horizon of an ever-advancing secular culture of citizens. A godless society is the progress of a secular culture.  Such a culture no longer needs thankful hearts, just diligent minds working to solve the problems of humanity for the greater good.  Keep in mind the greater good is the preservation of the human race, but that doesn’t mean that everyone matters, just those deemed worthy of living. 

 Does that sound far-fetched?  Well, isn’t that the point of pro-choice advocates in the abortion debate or the eugenics conundrum?  It is the point that “we get to decide.”  It is up to us.  It is about progress.  So, put the right people in power and progress is apparently limitless.  It isn’t about gratitude in individuals, but in others taking what is needed from you.  You don’t matter, but rather others.

 Thankfully, God doesn’t work that way.  Jesus Christ gave Himself for the good of others and you so that your life matters in a big way.  You matter. Thank the Lord!  Of course, there is a place for governing agents in this world.  Jesus said, “Give to Caeser what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Matt. 22:21).  But God limits the reach and power of government.  It can only do so much good before it only does so much worse by taking and taking and taking.

 Thankful hearts and people produce a grateful culture, a society that is set free to live freely,  set free from the mere whims of others, allowing all to live, everyone from the smallest to the perceived greatest.  Whether you trust in God or not, freedom exudes gratitude.  Gratitude is the grace that blesses all in this life. It gives others some semblance of hope.

 For Christians, whose hope is in the One who is beyond limits, and beyond this life alone, Thanksgiving is the time to let your light shine and not let your temporal liberties be curtailed.  Others’ eternity need that light.

 Rev. Mark Frith is the Champions for Liberty Network Director of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty.  

 

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Learn more declining abortion rates in North Carolina and Ohio with Dr. Michael New in a recent Issues, Etc. podcast.

 

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Lutherans understand that it’s pretty simple: “Marriage is defined by God Himself. He has written its design into the very fabric of creation.” Discover how to make the case for marriage as divine institution instead of a human construct by clicking here.

 

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““A grand thing, this union between man and wife!” –Rev. Martin Luther ”
— Rev. Martin Luther
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