The Thanksgiving Habit
He annual Thanksgiving day in America has grown to be a great national festival. It is a day of rejoicing. It summons all the people to gratitude. It is fitting that a people who have received untold blessings should set apart one day on which all should recall their mercies, think of God as the Giver of all and express their grateful feelings in words of praise. But it is not intended that the other three hundred and sixty-four days shall be empty of gladness because one is named as an especial day of rejoicing. We cannot crowd into any one day all the praises of a year. Indeed on no one day can we be grateful for another day. No one person can give thanks for a whole company of people. So no one day can be glad for any but itself. All the finDdtg tyt Wav
days should be thanksgiving days. Any that are not lack something, and stand as imperfect days in the calendar. We are told that we may count that day lost in which we do no kindness to anyone. In like manner may be set down as a lost day that one in which no songs of gratitude rise from our hearts and lips to God.
Anybody can be thankful on one day of the year. At least, it ought to be possible for even the most gloomy and pessimistic person to rouse up to grateful feeling on the high tide of an annual Thanksgiving day. No doubt, it is something to pipe even one little song in a whole year of discontent and complaining — the kind of living with which some people fill their years. God must be pleased to have some people grateful even for a few moments in a long period of time, and to hear them sing even once in a year. But that is not the way he would have us live. The ideal life is one that is always thankful, not only for a little moment on a particularly fine day. “Praise is comely,” that is, beautiful — beau- [208] tiful to God. The life which pleases him is the one which always rejoices. Nowhere in the Bible can we find either ingratitude or joylessness commanded or commended. All ungrateful feelings and dispositions are condemned. A great deal is said in disapproval of murmuring, discontent, worrying, and all forms of ingratitude. Again and again we are taught that joy is the keynote of a true life. It is not enough to rejoice when the sun shines, when all things are going well with us, when we are in the midst of prosperity; we are to rejoice as well when clouds hide the blue sky, when our circumstances seem to be adverse, or when we are passing through sufferings. In one of the Psalms, the writer says:
“/ will bless Jehovah at all tunes; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.’’
He had learned to sing in the hours of pain
as well as in the times of gladness. That is
the way the Christian should do — nothing
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should hush his song or choke the voice of thanksgiving and praise.
The only way to get thanksgiving into its true place in our lives is to have it grow into a habit. A habit is a well-worn path. There was a first step over the course, breaking the way. Then a second person, finding the prints of feet, walked in them. A third followed, then a fourth, until at length there was a beaten path, and now thousands go upon it. One who has been full of miserable discontents, utterly lacking in gratitude, gets a new divine impulse, and one day is really grateful for a few moments. The impulse comes again, and again he lets his life flow toward gratitude. Persisting in the disposition, his heart returns again and again to its gladness, until by and by it has been lured altogether away from the old beaten paths of discontent, discouragement, and unhappiness, and runs always in the ways of gladness. If we find that we have been leaving thanksgiving out of our lives, if we have been allowing ourselves to grumble instead of praise, [210] if we have indulged in unhappiness instead of in gladness, we should instantly set about the breaking of a new path, a thanksgiving path. It will not be easy at first, for gloomy dispositions when long indulged persist in staying in our lives. But they can be conquered, and we should not pause in our effort until we have trained ourselves entirely away from everything that is cheerless and ungrateful, into the ways of joy and song. There are many encouragements to a life of thanksgiving. For one thing, it makes life much happier. The person who indulges in fretting and complaining is missing much that is loveliest, both in character and in experience. The tendency of such a life is toward gloom and depression, and these qualities in the heart soon show themselves on the face and in the manner. Light is the emblem of a beautiful life, but ingratitude is darkness rather than light. If we would be happy we must train ourselves to be grateful. Ingratitude makes life dreary for us. Another reason for cultivating the thanksgiv- [211] ifinDing tie Waving spirit is because of its influence on others. Nobody loves a sullen person. We are exhorted to think of “whatsoever things are lovely,” and cheerlessness is not lovely. If we would have people like us, if we would attract them to us and have good influence over them, we must cultivate happiness in all our expressions. There are many people who have formed the habit of unhappiness. They may be good and honest, but they have not learned the lesson of gladness. And they are not helpful people. They are not diff users of joy.
We are as responsible for our faces as we are for our dispositions. If we go about with gloom on our countenances, we will cast shadows over others and make life harder for them. No one can be a real blessing to others until he has mastered his gloom and has attained the thanksgiving face. No one can be of very much help to others if he carries discontent and anxiety on his countenance. We owe it to our friends, therefore, as well as to ourselves, to form the habit of thanksgiving. [212]
There are those who have learned this lesson so well that wherever they go they make happiness. Their lives are benedictions. One writes to such a friend a birthday letter:
This is your birthday. On the calendars Of those who know you it is marked with gold, As both a holy and a holiday. You make us happy, and you make us good, By simply being with you. You bestow, And think you are receiving; like a rose That marvels at the fragrance of the breeze. We are most glad, since you were sent to earth It was while we are here; not hastened down To shine amidst the shadows of the past. Nor kept to brace some joyful future day. But come to share our present as it is. And leave to-morrow better for your stay.
It ought not to be hard to train one’s self to be grateful. There would seem to be reason enough in every life for continual thanksgiving. True, there are days when things may seem to go wrong, but it is only in the seeming. There is no doubt that all our circumstances bring blessings which we may have if [213] ifiuDing t])t Wav
we will. The hardest experience of any day enfolds in it a gift from God, if only we receive it in faith and love. We think of the sunny days as being good days, and we call unpleasant weather bad. But if we understood it, we should know that God sends to the earth just as rich blessings in his clouds as he does in his sunshine. The clouds bring rain, and after the rain all nature appears clothed in fresh beauty. A simple, childlike faith sees God in everything, and is ready always to give cheerful thanks, even when the reason for the thanksgiving may not be apparent.
Indeed, we shall some day see that many of the richest and best blessings of our lives have come to us through experiences and circumstances which to us seemed adverse, and from which we shrank. There is an old promise which says that to them that love God all things work together for good. All we have to make sure of is that we keep ourselves in the love of God. If we do this, everything that comes to us will bring its [214] enriching in some way, and out of the painful things of our lives we will gather the best blessings and the deepest joys. Then we shall not have many miles at the most of the rough, steep road. In a few years we shall have gone over it all and shall have come out into a place where there shall be nothing to vex or disturb us. And such gladness waits for us, such blessing, that one hour there will make us forget all the sorrow and pain and toil of the way.
“‘Tis a long road home;
But sleep for aching eyes.
Rest for weary feet,
For striving hearts a prize,
Silence still and sweet,
Wait at the end of the long road home.
“‘Tis a hard road home;
Many faint and lag
Beneath the heavy pack,
With feet and hearts that drag.
But none looks back — We know there’s an end to the hard road home.
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‘Tis a dark road home,
With shadows long and deep,
Where timid travellers fall.
And scarce their path may keep;
But the Light that shines for all
Gleams at the end of the dark road home.”
“TBecau!Se ge ate ^ttong”
‘’Because I spent the strength thou gavest me In struggle which thou never didst ordain, And have but dregs of life to offer thee, O Lord, I do repent, I do repent.
“Because I was impatient, would not wait, But thrust my impious hands across thy threads, And marred the pattern drawn out for my life, 0 Lord, I do repent, I do repent.
“Because thou hast bor7ie with me all this while, Hast smitten me with love until I weep, Hast called me as a mother calls her child, O Lord, I do repent, I do repent.”