ARE YOU EVER TROUBLED by the seeming scarcity of "thanks" in the Thanksgiving holiday? I must admit that I am.

I've almost concluded that Thanksgiving has become even more secularized than Christmas. During the Christmas season we are frequently admonished to "Keep Christ in Christmas." But during November we don't hear many reminders to "Keep the thanks in Thanksgiving."

Turkey Day

For many people - Christians included - Thanksgiving Day has been replaced by Turkey Day (more turkey than thanks). The focus of the day is on getting together with family, eating a big meal, watching (or perhaps playing) football, and chatting with relatives. The only giving of thanks is the prayer (perhaps a bit longer than usual) before the meal.

Even the church seems to a large extent to have capitulated to the secularization of this holiday. Very few (if any!) churches with which I am acquainted have a service of thanks on Thanksgiving Day.

I can understand this. Thanksgiving is a family day. People want to be with loved ones. A lot of people go out of town to be with parents, children, grandchildren, etc. And even in families that stay in town, it is difficult for those preparing the Thanksgiving meal to attend a worship service on Thanksgiving day.

For these reasons (and perhaps others), many churches moved their Thanksgiving services to the day before-to Thanksgiving eve. That seems reasonable.

But now a lot of churches have moved their Thanksgiving observance even further back - to the previous Sunday evening. And this observance often consists of a big "Thanksgiving" meal, with perhaps a brief service to follow. Again the emphasis seems to be more on eating than on giving thanks.

No, it doesn't seem that there is a whole lot of thanks in Thanksgiving And I must admit that I find this to be true in my own life as well.

We usually go to my wife's home for Thanksgiving, or her family visits us. And I, too, generally spend the day in visiting, eating, watching football, and perhaps playing some games. To be sure, I try to have a thankful attitude throughout the day. But I have to admit that I have not done a lot of giving thanks.

Doing something about it

This bothers me. So last year I decided to do something about it. I had a personal time of giving thanks to the Lord on Thanksgiving day. I was richly blessed by the experience.

If you, too, are troubled by the absence of "thanks" in Thanksgiving, perhaps you would like to try something similar this year. You could either do it alone, or with other members of your family.

I began my personal Thanksgiving service by reading several passages from the Bible that talk about giving thanks. Here are some passages I found meaningful:

Psalm 100  is excellent! This short psalm exhorts us to “give thanks” to the Lord and tells us why we should do so - “For the Lord is good and his love endured forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations."* Psalm 95:1-7 is another excellent passage. It calls us to "sing for joy the LORD," and to "come before him with thanksgiving,” for he is a "great God, creator of all, and "we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”

Giving thanks for deliverance

A psalm I especially like is Psalm 107, which begins, "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love endures forever." This psalm recounts how those facing death or oppression "cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress."

A refrain repeated several times in this psalm says, "Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men [mankind]." It only requires a little imagination to put oneself into one or more of these experiences The psalm is full of ways in which the Lord blesses His people and of reasons for giving thanks to Him

Another psalm that exhorts us to This bothers me. So last year I "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good" is Psalm 136. This psalm recalls God's acts of creation and His saving acts in delivering His people from Egypt and giving them the Promised Land. All the while it reminds them (and us), in a refrain included in every verse, that "His love endures forever." Again it is not difficult to substitute remembrances of God's saving work in our own lives through Jesus Christ.

A New Testament passage that does not speak directly of giving thanks but that reminds us of much for which we ought to be thankful are Jesus' words in Matthew 6:25-33. This passage assures us of our loving heavenly Father's concern for us, and it ought to cause our hearts to flow in thankfulness to Him.

Another New Testament passage appropriate for the occasion is Philippians 4:4-8. In this passage Paul calls us to "Rejoice in the Lord always,” which is very much like giving thanks; urges in to pray all of our prayers with thanksgiving"; and exhorts us to think about those things that are excellent or praiseworthy. Who is more praiseworthy than our Lord, who deserves all our thanksgiving?

Hymns of thanksgiving

Having read several passages of scripture, I then turned to the hymnals and looked at several Thanksgiving hymns. (If you don't have a hymnal in your home, I doubt if anyone will mind if you borrowed one for a few days from your church. Just be to return it!)

Since I enjoy singing, I sang some of the verses of the hymns (but softly, so as not to disturb others in the house!) Other verses I just read to myself. If you prefer not singing aloud or find it difficult to do so without accompaniment, reading the words is fine. In fact, I find that I get more out of the text when I just read the words than when I try to fit them to the music.

One of the hymns which I chose and which I particularly like is one I have not heard often. It begins:

We plow the fields, and scatter 

The good seed on the land,

It then goes on to tell how God provides the moisture, nourishment, warmth, and sunshine to produce the crop. I particularly like the refrain:

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above;

Then thank the Lord, 

O thank the Lord

For all His love

I also like the words of the third (last in my hymnal) verse:

We thank Thee, then, O Father, 

For all things bright and good,

The seed-time and the harvest, 

Our life, our health, our food;

Accept the gifts we offer, 

For all Thy love imparts,

And what Thou most desirest,

Our humble, thankful hearts.

A second hymn that has blessed me is also one not so well known (at least not to me). It begins:

With thankful hearts, O Lord, we come,

To praise Thy name in grateful song

I particularly like the second verse
We thank Thee, Lord, for daily food,
For plenteous store of earthly good;
For life, and health, we still posses,
With house and home so richly blest.

The third hymn I recommend is one of the better known Thanksgiving hymns, "Now Thank We All Our God.” The hymn begins with words of thanks to God, "Who, from our mother's arms, / Hath blessed us on our way / With countless gifts of love….” It continues in verse two with a plea that God be near us in all of life to give us joy, peace, grace, guidance, and "free us from all ills / In this world and the next.” It then concludes in verse three with these words:

All praise and thanks to God

The Father now be given, 

The Son, and Him who reigns

With them in highest heaven,

The one eternal God, 

Whom earth and heaven adore

For thus it was, is now,

And shall be evermore.

A time to give thanks

Having thus prepared my mind and heart by reading words of Scripture and verses of song, it was now time to put into words my own expression of thanks to the Lord. As I began to do so, words from the refrain of another Christian song were foremost in my mind:

Count your blessings,

Name them one by one;

Count your blessings, 

See what God hath done;

Count your blessings, 

Name them one by one;

Count your many blessings,

See what God hath done.

At first I found it slow going naming things for which to be thankful. But soon, as I went from generalities to specifics, blessings began popping into my mind faster than I could bring them before the Lord.

For example, as I thanked God for food, I began to think about all the delicious, nutritious food we have available - the wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products we enjoy, not to mention all the delicious desserts to follow them up! I thought of supermarket shelves laden with jars and boxes and bottles and cans. I thought of the turkey and dressing that at that moment were in the oven and soon would be on the table before us.

Similarly, as I thanked God for health, for my own and that of my family, I thought of the medical science that helps make this possible. I praised the Lord for something as common as aspirin (aren't you glad you didn't live the days before painkillers?), as well as for all the sophisticated medicines and high tech medical care available today.

The list continues to grow

As I thought about family, I found many things about my wife and daughter for which to be thankful. Then I went on to thank the Lord for my parents and family, my wife's parents and family, and for our wider circle of relatives and friends. In many cases, I not only thanked the Lord for these people, but thought of specific things about them for which to bless the Lord.

One thing kept leading to another As I thanked God for all the spiritual blessings that are mine (Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, my church, our pastors, and much more), I was reminded when I thanked God for the Bible that it would be of no use to me if I couldn’t read. This made me think of education, of schools, of books and libraries, of teachers who had meant so much in my life.

As one idea led to another and my mental list of things for which to be thankful continued to multiply, my heart began to fill with emotion as I became more and more aware of the countless blessings God had showered upon me. So much for which to be thankful!

Finally, I fell silent - not because I had exhausted the list of things for which to thank the Lord, but because I was exhausted emotionally. It was a satisfying feeling, like the satisfaction one feels after a physically exhausting day of productive labor.

I concluded my time of devotion and thanksgiving, then went and spent the rest of the day being with family, eating, watching some football, and playing some games. I thoroughly enjoyed the day. But the high point of it all was the time I had spent putting some thanks in my Thanksgiving. 

* Quotations from the Bible are from the New International Version.

Mr. Winfield is a former editor of the EVANGELIST. He was asked to write this article by the Worship Commission prior to its dissolution at General Conference.