Thanksgiving 2013.

A wonderful feature of Thanksgiving is that like it or not, somewhere along the way someone will put the question to you, "What are you Thankful for?"  And whether it is posed as snarky, condecending or completely sincere, and whether those who answer realize the significance, the question itself ties us back to a concept that is made full in the light of Christ.  People may question many things, but rarely do they question the fact that they should be Thankful...it is built into their operating system.  Thanksgiving is both a remnant of our original design and built into the fabric of religion itself.  However without understanding who God is, What Christ has done and What the Spirit awakens within us, we will never enjoy Thanksgiving to it's fullest.  Our efforts to be thankful fall short.  We end up counting blessings, making lists, sometimes forcing ourselves to dig out something to be thankful for.  But we all have moments of being truly thankful, joyed in such a way that we cannot help but fall to our knees and say "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!"  In this way, Thanksgiving reveals its true and proper nature:  Worship.  It is worship that we are built for, and only when we choose the rightful object of worship do we get our true joy.  Thanks be to God.

Those that don't have Christ may still, of course, be very thankful.  But we miss the real joy if we cannot tie our thankfulness back to the original source.  All thankful joy falls short and is fleeting when it is whispered moment to moment instead of bellowing through all of eternity.

As I have surrendered myself to Jesus, more and more he awakens in me the original intentions of what I was built for:  Worship, Compassion, Joy, Beauty, Justice and Thanksgiving.  It is this new Thanksgiving that I am thankful for this year (and forever), the mere possibility of feeling this emotion.  While I may have recognized the shadow of these emotions before Jesus, it is only now that I am getting the glimpse of the fullness that is available to me.  Jesus came to give sight to the blind, to give sound to the deaf,  and to make the lame walk.  And in this way he has also resurrected in us a living Thanksgiving.

Matthew 11:4
4Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see:5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy^b are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.