In2theRiver

Good morning from Westminster, MD!

In a little less than a week from the time this was written, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States. This is a holiday that gives us the opportunity to take a step back and reflect on all of the reason we have to be thankful. It is also a holiday that gives us an excuse to eat too much food and watch too much football (just me?) but that’s a different post. In all seriousness, Thanksgiving is a great reminder of the power and importance of being thankful. However, there is a problem with Thanksgiving.

I have have written about this problem in prior posts as Thanksgiving approached (click here to read last year’s post). The problem isn’t the holiday itself. The problem isn’t the idea of giving thanks. The problem isn’t even the food or the football. The problem is we forget to apply the lesson to the rest of the year. Sure, we are occasionally thankful at various moments throughout the year, but we lack the intention we apply on Thanksgiving. So, why does this happen?

There are many reasons, but I believe we often forget what thankfulness and gratitude produce in our lives. We treat gratitude as a task to complete rather than a way to live. We know we should be thankful, but we miss the transformation that can come from choosing it on a daily basis. In fact, I would go as far as to say we were designed to live lives of gratitude and experience a fuller life when we do so.

There are many byproducts to a life infused with gratitude and thankfulness. In the past, I have talked about the peace that can be found when we step into gratitude. This year, I want to focus in on something else we all desire: freedom.

Freedom is something we pursue in many areas of our lives. There is a good reason for this: no one wants to live in bondage to someone or something else. For example, financial freedom is a goal for most people. Everyone would vote for being out of debt and in a position to make decision based on goals instead of financial limitations. Financial freedom, while challenging to achieve, is a great goal. This is just one example of many. Freedom is a good thing and a worthy pursuit.

Question: if this is true, why do we often ignore one of the easiest ways to produce freedom in our lives? Could it be that we don’t realize we are in bondage?

Before you push back, consider the impact your possessions and circumstances have on your life. Does your stuff, or lack thereof, ever negatively shape your emotions? Do your immediate circumstances play an outsized role in the way you perceive life? I would certainly have to answer yes to these questions at times. This is because we have become beholden to our stuff and the ups and downs of life. We find ourselves in bondage to the temporal.

Do you want to find freedom from these things? I certainly do. This is where gratitude comes in. In a life defined by gratitude, you move from periodically listing the things for which you are thankful, to living a life recognizing that life and everything in it is a gift. To say it another way, a life of gratitude is lived with open hands. When we release our grip on our possession and circumstances, we reduce the power they have over us. No longer fighting for control of the temporal, we are in a position to receive. In reality, gratitude and thankfulness better allows us to live the life for which we were designed–a life trusting the God who loves us and created us on purpose and for a purpose.

Do you want to experience more freedom in your life? I do! Begin to infuse it with more gratitude and thankfulness.

How do you do this? Well, I don’t know that there is a secret formula. It could be taking a gratitude walk each day, declaring what you are thankful for as you appreciate God’s creation. It could be creating a gratitude jar, taking time each day to write down something for which you are thankful to put in the jar for later reflection. You could start each day by literally opening your hands, declaring that you are not in control, and declaring the reasons you have to be thankful. Maybe a prayer of gratitude or journaling is a better option for you. The key is not so much what you do but the intentionally to consistently do it. A life of gratitude is formed by creating a practice, not doing a single action.

This is how we move beyond “the problem” of Thanksgiving. Instead of making it a one-day event, we can use Thanksgiving as a launching off point to begin practicing gratitude on a daily basis. When we do this, we will begin to experience more freedom in our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving!

James Belt

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