How Thankful Are You?

How thankful are you? Better question: how thankful would your friends say you are? Would you get a, ‘very thankful’ or would you be at the bottom of the ranking with a, ‘not so thankful’? That’s a tougher question, huh?
Of course, everyone would immediately say, “Oh I’m very thankful. I love life and everything about it!” But when you listen to what you say when you are around your friends, it makes you stop and think doesn’t it? Many times we can have a very deluded opinion of ourselves. Deluded from reality, that is.
As you sit around the wonderful Thanksgiving table today, pay attention. Pay attention to how many of your family and friends have a complaining mantra instead of a thankful speech. So often without even thinking about, especially during the busy times in our lives, we complain instead of giving thanks. We all have a lot to be thankful for.
Unfortunately, complaining has become a way of life for so many people. We complain about our cars, our homes, our clothes, and about our very own family. Everything in our lives could be better. Everything in our lives seems to somehow be tainted by the “greener grass on the other side.” Their house is bigger, their car is newer and their kids seem nicer.
No, we don’t actually verbalize this, but somehow, it manages to be lodged in our hearts like a five-day-old burrito. This burrito of complaint is what spurs us on to work harder and longer hours, to achieve more, make more, and therefore, buy more. Thanksgiving is a great time to adjust and examine our hearts.
Adjusting can be a painful process because, first and foremost, we have to admit the point at which we are currently is not the healthiest place for us to be. We have to recognize that we could possibly be operating out of a complaining mindset as opposed to a grateful one. This is not an easy thing to admit. It’s actually very painful.
My very first trip to Honduras was in 1993. I lead a group of teenagers there to do some construction and ministry. I was a cocky, complaining American who had it all figured out. The missionary sent me up the mountain in the back of a truck with all the luggage of our ten-member group. I was going to stay with the luggage while he took the one-hour drive back to the city to retrieve the group members. I was to sit and play guard dog. I figured this would be a cushy job and expected a good two-hour nap in the jungle. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
As I sat there on this giant pile of luggage – 20 suitcases total – I looked across the dirt road at a mud hut that was approximately ten foot square. I watched the family go in and out and realized that about five to six people lived in this ten-foot square mud hut. I looked up and down the muddy path and realized that I was sitting on more stuff than this entire village owned.
I began to cry. I thought about how I had complained that the airplane was too uncomfortable, and how the luggage was too heavy. I had complained about the very things I should have been thankful for because I have been blessed with so much. I was complaining, while I was guarding more stuff than this entire village owned!
Our complaints are usually the very things for which we need to be giving thanks. I am so grateful for my home; so grateful for my family; so grateful for my church; and so grateful for my country (Democrats and Republicans). I am grateful.
So today, let’s look around and see with naked eyes the lack that surrounds the globe, and adjust our hearts to a path of thanksgiving and gratefulness. We all have a lot to be thankful for.