Giving Thanks
A reflection by National Pastor Jean-Daniel O’Donncada
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30 (NRSVA)
I will. I will.
There are moments in life when gratitude, when praise, when enthusiasm naturally pour out of us. There are times when it is a deliberate choice. A resolution or even a defiance.
To those entering this weekend without easy praise, I understand. I have long been aware that our own lives and feelings do not neatly follow a religious or secular calendar. Childhood literature prepared me to be scared on dark and stormy nights, to be spooked on Halloween, to be cosy and loved on Christmas morning. Then life showed me that the worst news could arrive on a sunny summer morning, we can be scared on Easter, we can be lonely on Christmas.
And now it is time to be grateful. Like it or not!
There is something holy, I have learned, in taking time to live into that paradox, though. To be sensitive to those whose lives are out of synch with expectations, while taking time to deliberately share with others.
We are invited to be grateful this weekend. I choose to accept the invitation. I invite you to be grateful, too!
In our shared church life as Canadian Disciples, since last Thanksgiving, many of our saints have gone to be with our Lord, and I am wilfully grateful for their lives of dedication they led and the gifts they shared with us all while they were with us.
We also have celebrated new marriages and new lives, new births, new arrivals to Canada, newly baptised Disciples, and newly commissioned ministers.
The Psalm reminds us that we don’t make God good through our praise. God is already doing good and holy things among us. But we can have reasons—petty or legitimate—to sometimes struggle to see the good. Our thanksgiving magnifies the good the Lord is doing. It makes it easier for us to see, it makes it easier for others to see.
One of the ways we magnify the Lord with our Thanksgiving is by sharing the feast we have on our tables. May we all find a way to open our tables, metaphorically, but also literally, to as many hungry people as we can. We do not make the abundance God has given us, but our gratitude makes it easier to see.