Giving thanks in all times

Give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Ephesians 5:20

I want to share with you a Thanksgiving reflection here from the writings of Dr. Leonard Sweet, professor of preaching.
Back during the dark economic days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject of Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, there wasn't much to be thankful for. But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship.
I suggest to you the ministers struck upon something. The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. Their gratitude was rooted not in what they had but in who they were and in who God is. It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.
Perhaps in your own life, right now, there is intense hardship. You are experiencing your own personal Great Depression. Why should you be thankful this day?
Dr. Leonard Sweet suggests three things. Reflect on these with me.
1. We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.
2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.
3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied.
Woodville UMC brothers and sisters, Christian disciples are grateful people yes because of blessings like family, friends, and community. However not everyone shares these blessings. Not everyone has a table with plenty of food this week. Many have an empty chair at their Thanksgiving table this week which used to hold a loved one who is gone. So we are a grateful people because Jesus says "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for rigtheousness, for they will be filled." What we have and what we lack is not the measure of our being a blessed people. We are a blessed people when we seek after Christ. We are blessed because we have been created by God, chosen in baptism and yearned after by the Holy Spirit.
Bethany and I count each of you a blessing. God bless your Thanksgiving!