Meditations on How Thanksgiving leads to Joy, Part 4

This past weekend, families in Canada gathered for thanksgiving. Our family tradition has been to go around our thanksgiving table from person to person and each share something for which they are thankful before we eat.

Someone has written “He who forgets the language of thanksgiving will never be on speaking terms with happiness.” John Henry Jowet comments, “Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” Did he mean a vaccine against despair, an antitoxin to counter discouragement, an antiseptic to banish gloom? If so, thanksgiving paves the way for happiness. In a Christian, who acknowledges that every good gift comes from above, thanksgiving is the first cousin to joy.

So many of the Christian virtues are connected. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 we read; “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Rejoicing is connected to praying and giving thanks. Anxiety dissipates as we give thanks and joy takes over. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:4-7). Joy can’t exist in hearts filled with turmoil.

Joy bubbles up from deep within one’s “inmost being,” where thanksgiving rules. As we rehearse all God’s benefits, joyful praise ascends. “Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Ps. 103:1-5).

Paul reminds us to be “overflowing with thanksgiving” (Col. 2:7). Isaiah urges us to joyfully “draw water from the wells of salvation…give thanks to the LORD…shout aloud and sing for joy” (Isaiah 12:3-5).

My wife, Phyliss, likes to close each day by asking “what are three things you are thankful for today?” Sometimes that stumps my melancholy personality. Some days seem gloomy, difficult, a burden but switching gears to focus on the good things God did, lifts the gloom and the Son appears from behind the clouds. 

No wonder Henry Van Dyke wrote:

Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before You,
Op’ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!