It is Thanksgiving. Naturally, there will be many tweets, emails, blogs, articles and Facebook updates about all the things that we are thankful for. There will be prayers at the dinner table and quiet reflection about all of the wonderful things that God has done for people this year.
There will be speeches and interviews of politicians and statesmen who will say, earnestly even, that they are thankful for one thing or another. And religious and community leaders will show that they are thankful to God for the things that God has done for them, by serving dinner to the marginalized today.
Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday in that respect--it reminds thoughtful people to be thankful to the Creator for the Creator's blessings.
While we should be thankful for all of the good things the Creator has done for us, Matthew 5:45 reminds us that the Creator provides the same blessings--sunshine, rain, wealth, plenty--for the just, as well as the unjust.
So even when we reflect on this year and can't point to anything great that happened (or the down times that we are thankful or because the creator uses those to prepare us for greater work), we should still be thankful. We should be thankful simply because we have a relationship with the creator and that while we are intelligent beings, some of the things that happen in this universe will always pass our understanding. And that's just fine with me.
This Thanksgiving, if I am called on to say what I'm thankful for, I could pull a Mary J. Blige and thank everyone from God and Jesus, to my mix tape guy. But I won't do that. What I am thankful for, what I am really thankful for is that Spirit saw fit to not give me everything I ever wanted, even when I begged and pleaded and prayed for those things. Even when I wanted them desperately. I am thankful that Spirit was kind enough to withhold those things from me, because they probably would have caused endless pain.
In other words, I thank God for nothing.
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