There is something slightly inconvenient about gratitude.
We tend to imagine thanksgiving as a warm and pleasant spiritual activity involving autumn leaves, steaming mugs, beautifully arranged tables, and perhaps a pie that has achieved a level of perfection never before witnessed in the history of pastry.
Gratitude, in this version, is what happens when life behaves itself.
The family is well.
The work is satisfying.
The bills are manageable.
The turkey is cooked.
The smoke detector has remained silent.
And then, having surveyed this remarkable state of affairs, we bow our heads and say, “Thank you, God.”
Which is certainly gratitude.
But it may only be the beginner’s version.
Because eventually Christian thanksgiving asks something more difficult of us.
It asks whether we can receive life as a gift even when life arrives in packaging we would never have chosen.
We Prefer to Place the Order
Most of us have fairly definite ideas about what constitutes a blessing.
Good health is a blessing.
A promotion is a blessing.
A new grandchild is a blessing.
An unexpected cheque is unquestionably a blessing, particularly if it arrives before the credit card statement.
These things are easy to recognize.
The difficulty begins when God appears to have ignored our carefully prepared list.
We prayed for certainty and received a question.
We prayed for success and discovered limitation.
We prayed for a door to open and found ourselves standing in a hallway for six months wondering whether God had misplaced the key.
We prayed for life to become easier and instead found ourselves becoming stronger.
That last one is particularly annoying.
Most of us would much rather have the easier life.
If given a choice between “God will remove all your difficulties” and “God will use your difficulties to deepen your soul,” I suspect the first option would win by a substantial majority at most parish meetings.
And yet Scripture repeatedly suggests that God is not merely interested in giving us comfortable circumstances.
God is interested in giving us life.
Israel Learned This in the Wilderness
The biblical story of thanksgiving rarely begins with abundance.
Quite often it begins with hunger.
Israel discovers this in the wilderness.
They have escaped Egypt, crossed the sea, and entered freedom — only to discover that freedom does not come with room service.
Soon the people are hungry.
And frightened.
And complaining.
Which, to be fair, is a fairly predictable combination.
Then comes manna.
Bread from heaven.
Enough for the day.
Not enough to establish a warehouse.
Not enough to guarantee next Thursday.
Enough for today.
The gift teaches them something the abundance of Egypt never could.
Life is received.
Every morning the people must go outside and gather what God has provided.
They cannot manufacture it.
They cannot control it.
They cannot store enough of it to eliminate tomorrow’s dependence.
They must receive.
And perhaps that is one of the deepest lessons gratitude has to teach us.
Gratitude Begins Where Control Ends
We are not naturally enthusiastic about dependence.
Our culture celebrates self-sufficiency.
We admire people who “made it on their own,” although careful examination usually reveals parents, teachers, friends, taxpayers, farmers, nurses, road builders, sanitation workers, and several thousand other people standing quietly somewhere behind the phrase “on their own.”
None of us made it on our own.
Not one of us manufactured our first breath.
We did not invent sunlight.
We did not design the human hand.
We did not create laughter.
We did not arrange for strawberries to taste like strawberries, which frankly seems like an unnecessarily generous feature of creation.
We arrived in a world already filled with gifts.
Before we accomplished anything, we received everything necessary to begin.
This is why gratitude is not merely good manners toward God.
It is a truthful way of seeing ourselves.
The grateful person recognizes that life is fundamentally received before it is achieved.
Even the Difficult Gifts?
This is where we must be careful.
Christian thanksgiving does not require us to pretend suffering is wonderful.
Cancer is not a gift.
Grief is not a gift.
Betrayal is not a gift.
Injustice is not a gift.
God does not ask us to paste religious wrapping paper around pain and call it a blessing.
Jesus himself wept.
Jesus lamented.
Jesus protested suffering.
Christian gratitude is not denial.
But Christian faith does make a remarkable claim:
There may still be gifts within a life that contains sorrow.
Sometimes courage appears where we would never have chosen to need courage.
Sometimes friendship becomes visible because someone stayed when life became difficult.
Sometimes compassion grows because our own wounds taught us how carefully another person’s wounds must be held.
Sometimes the collapse of one dream creates space for a life we could never previously have imagined.
We would not choose the wound.
But we may eventually give thanks for the grace that met us there.
That distinction matters enormously.
The Gift Hidden Inside Enough
Perhaps our greatest difficulty with gratitude is that we have been trained to look for more.
More success.
More possessions.
More experiences.
More recognition.
More security.
More certainty.
Advertising depends upon convincing us that our present life is approximately one purchase away from becoming satisfactory.
The Gospel offers a rather different possibility.
What if there is already enough grace here?
Not everything we want.
Not everything we dreamed.
Not everything we would have ordered.
But enough.
Enough love for today.
Enough strength for today.
Enough bread for today.
Enough mercy for today.
Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread, which is a remarkably modest request for someone addressing the Creator of the universe.
Give us today what we need today.
Not a ten-year supply.
Not absolute certainty.
Not immunity from difficulty.
Bread for the journey.
Grace for the moment.
Manna for the morning.
Thanksgiving Before Everything Is Finished
Perhaps this is the deeper invitation as Thanksgiving approaches.
Do not wait until everything is resolved before becoming grateful.
If we do, gratitude may spend most of its life waiting in the hallway.
There will always be something unfinished.
Something uncertain.
Something disappointing.
Something we wish had turned out differently.
But there will also be bread.
There will be people.
There will be laughter.
There will be memories.
There will be mornings.
There will be unexpected kindness.
There will be grace arriving quietly in places we were too busy worrying to notice.
The spiritual discipline of thanksgiving is learning to receive these things without demanding that they first prove our lives are perfect.
Because gratitude does not say,
“Everything is wonderful.”
Gratitude says,
“Even here, something has been given.”
And perhaps that is one of the holiest sentences we can learn.
Even here, something has been given.
Tomorrow morning, perhaps begin there.
Before checking the news.
Before reviewing the problems.
Before mentally assembling the day’s catalogue of things requiring repair, improvement, explanation, payment, or prayer.
Look around.
Ask one simple question:
What has been given to me today that I did not create for myself?
Then receive it.
Perhaps thanksgiving begins not when we finally possess everything we wanted, but when we discover that grace has already placed something in our hands.
And very often, it is enough for today.
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Companion Prayer
Gracious God,
giver of every good gift,
teach us to receive this day
without demanding that it first become perfect.
Open our eyes to the grace already before us:
daily bread, faithful companions, unexpected kindness,
strength for the journey, and mercy enough for today.
When life brings what we would never have chosen,
meet us there with your presence.
Help us not to call suffering good,
but to recognize the goodness that even suffering cannot destroy.
Free us from always wanting more,
and give us grateful hearts that can say,
“Even here, something has been given.”
For all we have received,
for all we cannot yet understand,
and for your love that holds us through it all,
we give you thanks.
Amen.