Thanksgiving Beyond One Day · What Gratitude Means in Our Lives and How to Keep It
In the first post we looked at how Thanksgiving began, and in the second at the three harvest feasts kept by the people of Israel in the Bible. This is the last post in our Thanksgiving series.
This time we turn the question toward ourselves. What does Thanksgiving mean in our lives today? And how should we spend the day? So that it does not end with one holiday but carries on into the days that follow, we have also written down simple things you can try right away at home and at church.
๐ค The pictures in this post were drawn with AI (ChatGPT) based on the Bible text. They are released under CC0 1.0 (the creator has given up copyright so that anyone may use them freely), so you may use them without credit. All Bible quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
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What Is a “Harvest” for Those of Us Who Don’t Farm?
At Thanksgiving, fruit and grain are often placed at the front of the church. Yet very few of us actually farm. So what exactly are we thanking God for having gathered?
It helps to put “harvest” into our own words. A harvest is what ends up in your hands after a year of hard work. The paycheck you earned, the inches your child grew, the studies you finished, a body that recovered from illness, a heart that held on through a hard season, the people who stayed by your side: all of these are this year’s harvest.
So Thanksgiving is not only a day for farmers. It is a day for everyone who has lived through a year to ask, “Where did what I hold in my hands this year come from?” The Bible shows us four things this day can mean for us.
1. A Day to Remember · Not Forgetting When We Are Full
Just before the people of Israel entered the promised land, Moses had a surprising worry. He was not worried about when they would be hungry, but about when they would be full.
When times are hard, people look for God, but once life becomes comfortable we quickly forget. Moses warns that at that moment a sentence like this rises in the heart.
“I earned this by working hard” is not a false statement. But the health to work, the place to work and the chances to learn were not things we made ourselves. Gratitude is the work of remembering exactly this. The psalmist also reminded his own soul.
“Benefits” here means the kindnesses God has shown. Thanksgiving is a day to take out, one by one, the kindnesses we received this year and count them again.
2. A Day to Return · From the Gift to the Giver
As Jesus was traveling, he met ten men with leprosy (a disease of the skin; in those days people who had it had to live apart from the village). They stood at a distance and cried out for mercy, and Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they went, all ten were healed (Luke 17:12~14). Then comes this scene.
Of the ten who were healed, only one came back and fell at Jesus’ feet.
The other nine were not bad people. They were on their way to the priests, just as Jesus had told them. But one man, when he saw that he was healed, turned back. He lifted his eyes from the gift he had received, his healed body, and came back to the One who gave it. What is more, he was a Samaritan, from a people who did not get along with the Jews of that time.
Thanksgiving is this kind of day of returning. If we have been busy enjoying what we received this year, on this day we stop, come back to the One who gave it, and say, “Thank you.”
3. A Day to Rejoice Together · Making Our Table Bigger
The Bible does not leave gratitude as something we do alone. To the person bringing the first fruits, God said this.
The Levites were the people who served in worship and had no land of their own, and the foreigners were people from other lands staying among them. God tells his people to rejoice together with those who had no field to harvest.
Much later, the people who had been taken away as captives came back to Jerusalem and gathered on the first day of the seventh month (Nehemiah 8:2). When God’s law was read aloud to them, they wept, realizing what they had failed to keep. Then Nehemiah said this.
They shared food even with those who had nothing prepared, and rejoiced together.
“Send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared.” A grateful person’s table grows bigger. A few days later these same people built booths from branches and kept the Feast of Booths for seven days with great joy (Nehemiah 8:14~17). Thanksgiving is not a day for checking our own share. It is a day for finding people to share it with.
4. Even in a Year with a Small Harvest
For some of you, this year may not have felt like a good harvest. Work may not have gone well, you may have been ill, or you may have said goodbye to someone you love. To you, the words “Be thankful anyway” can feel heavy.
The Bible tells of someone who went through a year like that: the prophet Habakkuk. His book opens with a complaint: “Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2). He did not force a smile. First he honestly brought his questions to God. And at the end of the book, he says this.
Figs, grapes, olives, grain from the fields, sheep and cattle: everything people of that time needed to live is gone. Even so, Habakkuk says he will rejoice. That is because his reason for thanks has moved from “what have I received?” to “who is with me?”
Thanksgiving in a year of small harvest is not a day to pretend to be happy. Like Habakkuk, it is a day to pour out what is really in our hearts and to hold on to the God who has not let go of us.
5. How to Spend Thanksgiving Week
Now for some things you can actually do. None of these four need big preparations, and you can start this week.
At the dinner table, take turns sharing three things you are thankful for this year, and write them down on paper. If you live alone, the notes app on your phone works too.
Instead of something general like “thankful for health,” try “In March my back hurt, but now I can walk again.” Writing when and what you were thankful for makes it come alive.
๐ In a 2003 study, American psychologists Emmons and McCullough divided college students into groups. For nine weeks, one group wrote down things they were grateful for each week, and another wrote down things that had annoyed them. The group that wrote about gratitude rated their lives more positively, looked ahead to the coming week more hopefully, and reported fewer physical complaints.
Around the dinner table, the family takes turns writing what they are thankful for this year.
Think of three people you were grateful for this year, and tell them in whatever way is easiest: a one line text message, a phone call, or face to face.
Don’t stop at “Thanks.” Name one specific thing you were thankful for, such as “Thank you so much for coming to help when I moved last month.”
๐ In a 2018 study, psychologists Kumar and Epley asked people to write a short note of thanks to someone they were grateful to. The writers underestimated how happy the other person would be and worried that it would feel awkward. But the people who received the notes were much happier than expected and felt less awkward than the writers predicted. The writers worried about choosing the right words, while the receivers were simply glad for the warmth of the gesture. You do not need to write something long or polished.
As Nehemiah said, think of someone “for whom nothing is prepared.” Invite an older neighbor who lives alone, a family new to your church, or someone studying or working far from home to share a meal with you.
If inviting someone is hard, you could share a dish of food, or give food to a local food bank (a place that collects food and passes it on to neighbors in need).
In Deuteronomy 26, the person bringing the first fruits told the story of their own family. Beginning with “My father was a Syrian ready to perish…”, they told how God rescued them from suffering and brought them into the land, and then finished like this.
Borrowing this pattern, write one sentence in your own story.
“This year I was ______, but God ______. So today I bring ______.”
Example: This spring I lost my job and didn’t know what to do, but God gave me a new workplace and the strength to keep going. So today I bring this thanks.
At your Thanksgiving service, share this one sentence aloud with your family or small group.
6. From the Day After Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is one day, but the gratitude the Bible talks about does not end in a day. Paul wrote this.
Notice that it says “in everything,” not “for everything.” Paul is not telling us to be glad that bad things happened. We can read it as finding reasons to be thankful even in the middle of whatever happens.
Paul also told us to hold on to thanks when worries come rushing in.
This does not mean pretending our worries are not there. It means bringing our requests to God just as they are, together with thanks for what we have already received. A prayer that only lists worries and a prayer that begins with thanks may be about the same problem, yet they leave the heart in a different place.
“In word or in deed”: a life where all the words and work of a day lead into thanks. There is no need to start big. A few small habits like these are enough.
Don’t throw away the paper with your thanks list. Keep it in your Bible or stick it on the fridge. When you take it out again next Thanksgiving, you will see with your own eyes how God worked over the year.
In Summary
- A day to remember · Not forgetting when we are full, and counting again the kindness we received. (Deuteronomy 8)
- A day to return · Lifting our eyes from the gift and coming back to the Giver with thanks. (Luke 17)
- A day to rejoice together · Making our table bigger for neighbors who have nothing prepared. (Deuteronomy 26, Nehemiah 8)
- Even with a small harvest · Holding on not to what we received, but to who is with us. (Habakkuk 3)
- From the next day on · Carrying thanks into everything, even into our worries, in word and in deed.
Questions for Home and Church
- What was your “harvest” this year? Can you find one thing in your hands that you did not get by your own strength alone?
- Of the ten men who were healed, only one came back. Who is someone you have been putting off thanking? Could you send them a word this week?
- Nehemiah said, “Send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared.” Who would you like to invite to your table this Thanksgiving?
More Resources
- The Origin of Thanksgiving · from Plymouth 1621 to the churches of Korea
The first post in our Thanksgiving series. - Harvest Feasts in the Bible · Unleavened Bread, Weeks and Booths Explained with Pictures
The previous post, explaining the three harvest feasts of the Bible. - Thanksgiving Bible Verse Images · 20 Free Designs (CC0)
Thanksgiving verse images you can use in church bulletins, slides and classroom boards. - Our Thanksgiving activity sheets for children (answers included) are now available. PPT backgrounds and coloring pages will be added to our Thanksgiving collection as they are ready.
Sources
- Bible text · World English Bible
- Gratitude lists · Emmons & McCullough, “Counting Blessings Versus Burdens,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2003)
- Expressing thanks · Kumar & Epley, “Undervaluing Gratitude,” Psychological Science (2018), University of Chicago summary
Origin Bible · Mission Zedero
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