Evidence of Thankfulness

I was listening to Al Mohler’s, “The Briefing” this morning as I do most mornings when he mentioned a very fortunate situation that led to thankfulness. Three young Boy Scouts were separated from their leaders in the mountain of North Carolina last week and ended up spending a night out in the wild, lost and alone. The story ends well with the kids being returned to their families. They survived the night in the cold, by pitching their tents, hunkering down in their sleeping bags and even getting a fire started!

Although this may sound like an advertisement for the Boy Scouts, I’d rather consider it as an advertisement for thankfulness . . . And not just a run of the mill attitude of thankfulness, but a God centered thankfulness.

I believe that gratitude is a common human experience, and points toward the Almighty giver. It is completely possible for the parents of these boys to say in an interview that they are thankful for the return of their boys, but to whom is their thankfulness rendered? Thankfulness is always directed at a giver.

Dictionary.com defines Thanks as, “A grateful feeling or acknowledgment of a benefit, favor, or the like, expressed by words or otherwise.” Thanks always has an object. Someone is receiving it.

I see in even the thankfulness of the human heart an evidence for God! Have you ever been thankful for a sunset? Have you ever been thankful that the diagnosis came back negative? Have you ever been thankful that the baby was born healthy? Have you ever been thankful that you are alive? To whom do you offer that thanks? The common human experience of thanksgiving, is a signpost that there is a God, and He delights in giving us good things!

Happy Thanksgiving!!