I could go for some Thanksgiving right about now and it has nothing to do with the food. Check that. Maybe it has something to do with the food. I mean, have you ever had a Thanksgiving meal in the South? I pity those who haven’t but it’s probably for the best–much easier to never have than to have and then try to do without.
Anyway, since I’m anticipating this year’s Thanksgiving my thoughts keep returning to the essential nature of gratitude which, in turn, reminds me that there is no true Christianity apart from thankfulness.
To wit:
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. {Romans 1:21, NAS}
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank. — Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers.Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? –G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
…we must be persuaded not only that as he once formed the world, so he sustains it by his boundless power, governs it by his wisdom, preserves it by his goodness, in particular, rules the human race with justice and judgment, bears with them in mercy, shields them by his protection; but also that not a particle of light, or wisdom, or justice, or power, or rectitude, or genuine truth, will anywhere be found, which does not flow from him, and of which he is not the cause; in this way we must learn to expect and ask all things from him, and thankfully ascribe to him whatever we receive. For this sense of the divine perfections is the proper master to teach us piety, out of which religion springs. By piety I mean that union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires. For, until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that naught is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; no, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity. — John Calvin (Institutes 1.2.1; emphasis added)
according to Script 