Thanks Giving

“My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever.” Psalm 145:21

              I have some problems with the Thanksgiving holiday. Don’t get me wrong. I love the day. Time with family is wonderful, the food is amazing, the time off work is great. But there are three things I don’t like (not including the calories). One is that so many people celebrate this holiday without knowing who they’re thanking. I’ve heard of people thanking Mother Nature for making them or some other “god.” They may even say thanks without having any idea whom they’re thanking. The other two problems really relate more to those of us who do know that we’re thanking God. First is that we need a day to tell Him thanks. Maybe we need to be reminded to thank God. And I guess that’s the problem. I don’t like it that I often do need that reminder. The last problem I have is that we only have one Thanksgiving. Shouldn’t we have it every day, or at least every week? It’s as if thanking Him once a year is going to be good enough.

              All of that made me think of this verse out of the Psalms. First, let’s notice that this is talking about speaking praise to God. Thanks and praise needs to begin in the heart, but it shouldn’t stop there. It should well up in our hearts so much that it just automatically overflows out of our mouths. As is often the case, the original language shows us a richness in the verse that we lose in translation. In English, the word “praise” appears twice but the original Hebrew uses two different words. To show this, some English translations use the word “bless” for the second one. The main difference is the audience. In the first half of the verse, it’s talking about praising God for His glory, His excellence. It’s telling Him what an incredible God He is. The second one is giving Him thanks in such a way that others hear about it. It’s like the psalmist is saying that He’s going to tell God and everyone else in hearing distance about how awesome God is. He just can’t keep it in any longer! And this praise and thanks is eternal. God has always been praised and always will be praised. Always. Without end.            

            If we would all just live by this verse, the problems I have with Thanksgiving would be gone. There would no longer be any doubt about Whom we’re thanking. Others would know that our God is the only One worthy of such praise and honor. They may choose to disagree with that, but they wouldn’t be able to make the mistake of thinking that just throwing a “thanks” out into the air is the same as thanking the almighty Creator of the universe. Plus, I wouldn’t need to be reminded to thank God. Nor would we only be thanking Him one day a year. Thanksgiving would be a lifestyle rather than a holiday. We can still gather for the turkey and pumpkin pie, but we will live every day with the joy that comes only from knowing that God is the giver of all good and perfect gifts, and we will be praising Him for all eternity.