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In Scripture, we see “thanks,” as a word and as a concept, take on various forms. In the Old Testament, it is more often translated as “praise.” Whether in the Old or New Testament, we see the words:
Thanks.
Gratitude.
Praise.
Grateful.
Appreciation.
And we see these words in the contexts of a
Psalm.
Offering.
Prayer.
Song.
In his book, Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman highlights that there are multiple ways to express and receive love. Similarly, thanksgiving can take on various forms:
A verbal expression of gratitude.
An attitude of appreciation.
A sacrificial gift.
Time spent together.
Service with a smile.
A hug or high-five.
Today, I encourage you to give an offering of praise in song to our Heavenly Father. And choose a creative way to express your thanks to someone in your life—a person with whom you haven’t expressed your gratitude recently.
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Thanksgiving Day is always a special time to spend as a family. I will be with a large portion of my physical family today. Yet I remember creating, with my Venezuelan family, our own version of a Thanksgiving meal while I lived in Venezuela.
I know that many have not had the same blessing that I have had of a family that supports and loves each other. We are far from perfect. But we strive to share in the loving support that is best found in the context of family.
I give thanks to God for my family—my parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nephew, niece, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. And I give thanks to God for my family in Christ that spans the world.
As Philip Yancey and Henri Nouwen put it...
“Family is the one human institution we have no choice over. We get in simply by being born, and as a result we are involuntarily thrown together with a menagerie of strange and unlike people. Church calls for another step: to voluntarily choose to band together with a strange menagerie because of a common bond in Jesus Christ. I have found that such a community more resembles a family than any other human institution. Henri Nouwen once defined a community as “a place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” His definition applies equally to the group that gathers each Thanksgiving and the group that congregates each Sunday morning. (p. 64-65, Church: Why Bother?)”
― Philip Yancey, Church: Why Bother?: My Personal Pilgrimage