What are you thankful for is one of the questions we are asked and try to answer
this time of the year. Perhaps your family has a tradition of posing that question
at your Thanksgiving meal and so you show up with at least one Thanksgiving so
there’s no awkward pause. But I think the pause is a good thing and it invites us
to search our hearts and lives for God’s blessings.
I also think most of us are more thankful for people than material things. I
watched a short interview with the richest person in Alabama and he discounted
the value of his wealth by saying it doesn’t matter as much as we think it does,
because he can only eat three meals a day, drive one car and wear one pair of
pants at a time. I think he was saying that when you have enough, it’s enough
and the overabundance doesn’t’ provide a better or happier life. In fact, those
who have surveyed people have discovered that once your income gets to a
certain level, making more doesn’t add to your well-being. It might provide
security in the way of an emergency fund but your level of contentment remains
the same. The way to increase your joy and well-being at that point isn’t by
getting, but rather, by giving. As you know, Mr. Jimmy Rane, the owner of
YellaWood, has been and is a giver and so he might say you can give more but
you can’t really consume more past a certain level.
I’ve discovered at some Thanksgiving meals what overindulging feels like and it
helps me to own that’s the feeling created by making me the one and only focus
of what I have or have been given. I feel bloated, not blessed at that point.
Those who are smarter than me call that the reality of diminishing returns. The
first piece of cake is delicious. The second piece might be good but the third
makes me miserable. One of the ways we know that enough is enough is by
giving. We give thanks to God for what we have received. But we also live our
thanks by giving. So Thanksgiving leads us to Thanks-living. And both of them
remind us of what really matters and that’s people. The song B.J. Thomas (and
the children) used to sing said it like this: “Using things and Loving people,
that’s the way it's got to be. Using things and Loving people, look around and
you can see... that loving things and using people only leads to misery. Using
things and loving people, that’s the way it got to be; for you and me!”
Now... Pass the Turkey,
Pastor Dean