1 Problem with Thanksgiving…and 10 Ways to Overcome It

Next week is Thanksgiving. This day is my favorite holiday. I like to think of it as Christmas, but without all the pressure!

It’s a day that I look forward to for food, family, relaxing, watching TV…just a wonderful day. I hope it’s that way for you, too: a day where you can just enjoy time with friends and family and just relax.

There’s just one problem that I think a lot of folks have on Thanksgiving: we don’t take much time to actually give thanks! We fill our day with hanging out, watching football (or, hopefully, basketball), eating, resting…and there is often very little time spent actually thanking God for what we have when He has been so good to us over and over again.

So, I’d like to give 10 ways to overcome that this year. In reality, it is just one way, but 10 avenues to approach it.

The overarching solution is simple: take time to talk about God’s blessings.

But how can you approach that? Here are 10 questions to ask:

1. In what way have you seen God’s providence work in your life this year?
2. What is a “simple” blessing that you have taken for granted, but need to be more thankful for?
3. What is something difficult God has helped you through this year?
4. What promise of Scripture have you seen “come to life” in the past few months?
5. What person (or people) has done something for you in the past few months that has caused you to be more grateful?
6. What is something at your congregation that you are thankful for more now than ever?
7. What events in the news have helped you focus on being more thankful recently?
8. What is a small event in your own life that has helped you focus on gratitude?
9. Who have you seen display gratitude in a simple but beautiful way recently?
10. What storm of life has brought about a silver lining with the help of God’s grace?

Certainly, there are other questions like these you can ask, but these are enough to get you started?

So, amidst all the wonderful things you have planned for Thanksgiving, why not slow down just a few minutes and actually give thanks? I think you will find it to be the best part of your day.

By the way…

As one “crafty” way to ask these questions, Leah wrote a post last year about a project we did as a family that went over very well. It is a craft, but (trust me!) it can be done by anyone and only takes about five minutes. You can find her article here.

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AUTHOR: Adam Faughn

Photo background credit: Faith Goble on Creative Commons