Expressing thankfulness in Christian preaching involves recognizing God's goodness in all circumstances, including trials, and responding with heartfelt gratitude and generosity (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Illustrations often use pictures of hidden blessings, sacrificial giving, and awareness of others' needs to highlight a mature, thoughtful, and abundant spirit of gratitude (Colossians 3:15).
True thankfulness and generosity come from the heart, not from obligation or appearance.
A young girl sat at the counter of an ice cream store. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" she asked. "Fifty cents," the waitress said with hardly a glance at the child. The girl opened her fist and looked at her coins. She asked, "How much is a dish of just plain ice cream?" Annoyed, the waitress snapped, "Thirty-five cents!" The girl counted out 35 cents and handed it to the waitress. "I'll take the plain ice cream."
The waitress took the money without a word and brought the ice cream. After the small customer had eaten and left, the waitress, cleaning up, suddenly flushed with shame. There, placed neatly beside the dish were two nickels and five pennies-her tip. The Uncommitted Christian
Two close friends, a Jew and a Christian, often discussed their religions. Finally they decided to visit each other's place of worship. They went to the synagogue first. The time for the offering came and the Jew took a check out of his pocket and placed it in the offering plate. The Christian was very inquisitive so he moved about until he could see the amount of the check. It was for $27.50. He immediately turned to his Jewish friend and said, "Abe, is this your weekly or your monthly offering?" Abe turned to his Christian friend and said, "Why, don't you know I am an orthodox Jew and the Old Testament tells me that I should give one tenth of all that I make to the Lord? I thought you Christians did exactly the same thing." "Oh, no," the Christian replied. "Don't you know that we have been emancipated from the law and we are now under grace. We are free people; we are not bound by this law or any other." "And what do you do when it comes to your offerings to the church?" "Oh, Abe, that is simple. At the end of the week, we just give what is left over." "Really?" Abraham answered with surprise, "You almost persuade me to become a Christian."
Expressing appreciation can deeply encourage and uplift lonely, discouraged hearts.
A doctor wrote a letter of thanks to a schoolteacher for having given him so much encouragement when he had been in her class 30 years before. He later received this reply: "I want you to know what your note meant to me. I am an old lady in my eighties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and seeming like the last leaf on the tree. You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the first letter of appreciation I have ever received. It came on a cold, blue morning and cheered my lonely old heart as nothing has cheered me in many years." Do Not Delay Expressing Appreciation
A young man was an organist in a large church in Texas. He was a fine musician, but, being blind, was unable to read in the faces of his audience the great pleasure his music was giving. His caressing touch on the keyboard sent out through its great pipes the songs of his soul. People would talk to each other about the beauty and the uplifting influence of his music. Often his music sent tears down furrowed cheeks. But no one ever thought to tell the organist, who was longing to hear a word of response.
One morning it was announced that he would not play after that service. His decision was final; another organist must be secured. After the service a woman who had enjoyed his music thoroughly went up to him, and said, very earnestly, "I am sorry you will not play for us any longer. I have enjoyed your music so much. It helped me greatly; it soothed and comforted me when I sorrowed. I have thought many times I would tell you what an inspiration I have received through your music. I thank you for it."
The young man's voice faltered and tears rushed to his sightless eyes as he whispered, "Oh, why didn't you tell me sooner? I needed comfort and inspiration, too."
Considering those less fortunate fosters a thankful and contented heart.
A mother and her two little children were destitute. In the depth of winter they were nearly frozen, and the mother took the cellar door off the hinges and set it up in front of the corner where they crouched down to sleep so that some of the draft and cold might be kept from them. One of the children whispered to her, "Mother, what do those poor children do who have no cellar door to put up in front of them?"
A thankful heart discovers hidden blessings like a magnet finds iron in sand.
If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet, and sweep through it, and it would draw to itself the most invisible particles. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find some heavenly blessings.
Publicly expressing thanks can inspire others to remember to thank God.
A mother took her three children to a restaurant to eat breakfast one morning. The smallest of the three children sat at the very end of the row. She saw other people being served and eating right away without stopping to say thanks. It surprised her. When the food was served to her, she shouted out to her mother: "Mommy, don't people ask the blessing in this place?" You can well imagine the embarrassment of those present. Her mother tried to hush her. But, the waitress said to little Mary, "Yes, we do, sister! You give thanks!"
Amazingly, at that very moment everybody else also bowed their heads and offered thanks.
Embarrass them and maybe you will bring them to their senses to say "Thank you, God."
Thankfulness is thinking about God's goodness, which naturally leads to gratitude.
Sir Moses Montefiore, the Jewish philanthropist, had as the motto of his family, "Think and Thank." In the old Anglo-Saxon, thankfulness means "thinkfulness." Thinking of all God's goodness draws forth gratitude.
True richness is recognizing and appreciating everyday blessings, not material wealth.
They huddled inside the storm door-two children in ragged, outgrown coats.
"Any old papers, Lady?" they asked a passerby.
She was very busy; she wanted to say no, until she looked down at their feet wrapped only in thin little sandals, sopped with sleet. "Come on in and I will make you a cup of cocoa," she said. There was no conversation. Their soggy sandals left marks on the clean hearthstone.
Cocoa and cake would fortify against the chill outside. After serving them, she went back to the kitchen and started on her household budget as they sat enjoying the warmth.
After a few minutes, the silence in the front room struck through to her. She looked in.
The girl held her empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady, are you rich?"
"Am I rich? Mercy no!" She looked at her shabby slipcovers.
The girl put her cup back in its saucer carefully. "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was old with a hunger that was not of the stomach.
They left then, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They had not said thank you. They did not need to. They had done more than that. Plain blue pottery cups and saucers-but they matched. She tested the potatoes and stirred the gravy. "Potatoes and brown gravy, a roof over our heads, my husband with a good, steady job-these things matched, too," she mused.
She moved the chairs back from the fire and tidied the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still set upon the hearth, and she let them be. "I want them there in case I ever forget how very rich I am," she told herself.
Thanksgiving is the heart's harvest, a time to pause and praise God.
Thanksgiving is the harvest of the heart
After the fruit and grain are stored away.
The quiet season of remembering,
The moment when we pause to praise and pray.
A thankful spirit praises God even in difficult circumstances, finding reasons to be grateful.
"Gratitude is what always spoils life when it is left out." A thankful spirit enables one to praise God even when circumstances are difficult.
Alexander Whyte, the Scottish preacher, always began his prayers with an expression of gratitude. One cold, miserable day his people wondered what he would say. He prayed, "We thank Thee, O Lord, that it is not always like this."
A needy traveler naturally looks to the one who supplies his needs with thankfulness.
If an exhausted and needy traveller should rest at the foot of a castle, and some one from the walls above should reach him a supply for all his needs, could he keep from looking up to see who had relieved him? So it is not possible for the true Christian, who lives daily out of the alms-basket of God's providence, not to look with thankfulness to that Father who liberally supplies all his need. Spencer.
The water-lily rejoices visibly in rain, unlike the desert heath, illustrating thankful hearts.
The heath in the desert wants rain far more than the water-lily. But let the showers come down upon the heath in the desert, there is no motion, no sign, that the shower is welcomed, or is working. On the other hand, the moment the rain begins to fall upon the water-lily, though it is rooted in water, and has its chief element in water, its leaves seem to be clapping their hands; and the whole plant rejoices in the falling of the rain. Rev. S. Martin.
A crippled woman remains thankful for the use of one thumb and God's presence.
The room is clean, even airy; a bright little fire burns in the grate; and in a four-post bed you will see sitting up a woman of sixty-four years of age, with her hands folded and contracted, and her whole body crippled and curled together as the disease cramped it, and rheumatism has fixed it, for eight and twenty years. For sixteen of these years, she has not moved from her bed or looked out of the window, or even lifted her hand to her own face; and also is in constant pain, while she cannot move a limb. But listen! She is so thankful that God has left her that great blessing, the use of one thumb. Her left hand is clinched and stiff, and utterly useless; but she has a two-pronged fork fastened to a stick, with which she can take off her great old-fashioned spectacles, and put them on again, with amazing effort. By the same means, she can feed herself; and she can sip her tea through a tube, helping herself with this one thumb. And there is another thing she can accomplish with her fork: she can urn over the leaves of a large Bible when placed within her reach. A recent visitor addressed her with the remark, that she was all alone. "Yes," she replied in a peculiarly sweet and cheerful voice, "I am alone, and yet not alone."—"How is that?"—"I feel that the Lord is constantly with me."—"How long have you lain here?"—"For sixteen years and four months; and for two years and four months I have not been lifted out of my bed to have it made: yet I have much to praise and bless the Lord for."—"What is the source of your happiness?"—"The thought that my sins are forgiven, and dwelling on the great love of Jesus my Saviour. I am content to lie here so long as it shall please him that I should stay, and to go whenever he shall call me." The Book and its Mission.
Christians have greater reasons for thankfulness than worldly distinctions, like being created in God's image.
Plato, looking through the dim spectacles of Nature, gave thanks unto God for three things: First, That God created him a man, and not a beast; Secondly, That he was born a Grecian, and not a barbarian; Thirdly, That not only so, but a philosopher also. But Christians, that are better bred and taught, turn the stream of their thanks into another manner of channel: First, That God hath created them after his own image; Secondly, That he hath called them out of the common crowd of this world, and made them Christians; Thirdly, and more especially, That, amongst those that bear the name of Christ, he hath made them faithful ones; like a few quick-sighted men amongst a company of blind ones; like the light in Goshen, when all Egypt was dark besides; or like Gideon's fleece, only watered with the dew of heaven, whilst the rest of the earth was dry, and destitute of his favor. Great cause of thankfulness indeed! Spencer.
True thankfulness is shown by a person's life, not just their words.
As physicians judge of the condition of men's hearts by the pulse which beats in their arms, and not by the words which proceed from their mouths; so we may judge the thankfulness of men by their lives rather than their professions.
