Confessions at Thanksgiving

I have a dog named Burton. She is named after a place I grew up in the summers and a place my family returns each year for vacation, Lake Burton. Burton is a Yellow Lab who loves to eat. She can be on the other side of the house as I walk quietly into the kitchen, quietly take out of the cabinet the box of crackers and quietly try to open the jar of peanut butter. But before the lid is out of my hand and laying on the counter and my knife is just beginning to dip into the peanut butter to be applied to my first cracker she is at my feet drooling. She loves to eat. I do not feed Burton dog food. She eats things like fried eggs and toast, left over Sunday dinner and chicken noodle soup. But she has a character flaw. She is an ingrate. She never says thank you. In fact if I have determined that she is need of nothing to eat while I am in the kitchen and I tell her to go lie down on her bed she will obey. However as she lies down she sighs, sometimes moans or just plain growls showing her disapproval of me and my unfeeling command that certainly does not understand her situation. But she never says thank you. She is dependent upon me for every meal, she eats better than any dog on the block, she sleeps inside, gets the run of the house, a bone on Sunday, but she is an ingrate, an ungrateful canine.

I tell you about my dog to tell you about myself. I have a wretched sin problem that is akin to my dog Burton. I am cynical. The word cynic is derived from the Greek word for canine which means dog. Webster defines cynic as “having the qualities of a surly dog.” Some may try to blame this on my melancholy temperament. However, I find in my heart the expressions of being cross, crabby, sour, rough, just plain surly and cynical. But I did not say my dog was cynical, I said she was ungrateful. Exactly, she cannot express her surliness unless she growls or howls, but I can express mine in all kinds of words and when I do it is the expression of being an ingrate, an ungrateful prig, a thankless wretch.

Now that you know about my dog and me, and are thinking that we both belong in a dog house, what about you? We are fast approaching one of our favorite days of the year, Thanksgiving. Burton does not remember last Thanksgiving so she does not know what is in store for her. But when she receives some of the bounty of that day and the day after will she be thankful or will she eat her bowl clean and return to the kitchen for more just as ungrateful as before? On that day we will gather around the table and tell everyone something we are thankful for while the rest of the time we complain about our football team, our job, the state of our country, the faults of our neighbors or family who are not present and the folks at church? That’s my biggest problem with comparing myself to Burton, at least she is consistent. I am just hypocritical.

I don’t want to sit at the children’s table this Thanksgiving, or be out with the dog, but I ought to. I act like an ungrateful child who expects the world to give me everything I want, and when it doesn’t I growl. I want to sit with the mature adults but maturity is thankful from the heart and expresses it in gratitude and praise. C.S. Lewis noted this difference when he observed, ‘The humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious (large), minds praised most while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.’ Maturity is founded in a recognized dependence on God for all things and is expressed in a humble thankful life and speech. When my mind and heart are balanced and filled with great thoughts of God then the Spirit produces in me humility and a want to give thanks.
Therefore preparing for thanksgiving is not something the Christian is called to do once a year, though he ought to make that a special time, it is a way of life everyday. For me to continue in the sin of ingratitude and a life of cynicism is to live like a dog. Therefore I must flee from this sin and put it to death by thinking great thoughts of God in utter dependence upon him for all things. I must enter the realm of his truth and let my mind and heart reach deeply into his Word. And there I will find great and wonderful things concerning him, his salvation and his will. It is in this realm of greatness and beauty that gratitude is birthed and nurtured. It is in this realm that I can give thanks in all circumstances (1Thes.5:18). I must thank him when times and things are “good” because it is good and I must thank him when things or times are “bad” because he is working in me patience, endurance, humility, and a want for another reality. Preparing for a heart and life of gratitude and the practice of thanksgiving does not happen because Aunt Jane gives you a piece of paper and asks you to write down one thing you are thankful for. My dog could do that with her bowl in her paws if she could write. We must go on our knees into the throne room of God where is displayed in Christ God’s infinite grace and mercy, unending forgiveness, majestic beauty of holiness, extensive power and revealed wisdom. It is here that our hearts are revived and we will magnify him with thanksgiving (Ps.69:30, 32).