Abounding with Thanksgiving

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7

Last week we learned that not only is our walk with Christ to be conducted by faith but it is to be conducted by faith in a specific person. Faith in itself is no virtue. For faith to be virtuous it must join one to the Christ revealed in Sacred Scripture; for trust in any other is not virtue but idolatry.

Today I want to develop at more length Paul’s admonition that we are to be abounding in the faith with thanksgiving. To abound, we said, is to overflow, to know no limits. Imagine a glass full to the brim with water on your kitchen table. When you bump the table what comes out of the glass? Water. Bump the table really hard and what comes out? Water. Why does water come out of the glass each time? Because that’s what is in the glass.

So too with thankfulness. We are to be abounding in the faith with thankfulness. Thankfulness is to fill our lives. If we were to picture one another as drinking glasses, the beverage swirling in the glass is to be thankfulness. And when we are abounding in the faith with thankfulness and someone comes along and bumps our table, bumps our life, if our glass is full of thankfulness, what will come out? This isn’t rocket science is it? If our hearts are full of thankfulness then when we get bumped thankfulness will come out.

So you were driving down the road and the little old lady in front of you was driving excruciatingly slow – what came out? You faced challenges at work – what came out? Your son or daughter disobeyed – what came out? Your mom or dad disciplined you – what came out? You found out you have a serious illness – what came out? The Supreme Court of the United States made another vile ruling – what came out? Bump, bump, bump. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thes 5:18). Notice Paul’s qualifier – in everything give thanks. In prosperity, in adversity; in sickness, in health; in peace, in war. Give thanks in everything. How is this possible? Only if our hearts, only if our glass, is full of thanksgiving before our table is bumped. And our hearts will only be full of thanksgiving if we meditate deeply on the character and works of God – God who created us, God who redeemed us, God who has placed us at this time in history and who so numbers the hairs of our head that not one falls to the ground apart from His Fatherly care. When we meditate on these things, our hearts will be filled with thankfulness and we will be enabled to give thanks in everything for the wisdom of our Heavenly Father – not just when it appears wise to us but when it is in fact wise, namely, always. Of all people, Paul insists, we should be the most thankful, the most joyful, the most riotously happy for we serve the God who rules and governs all things.

But instead of being known for exuberant bubbly thankfulness, we are often known for our restrictions, our uptightness, our angst, our frustration, our grumbling. Paul calls us to something different – he calls us to thankfulness. So where are you?

Reminded that rather than abound in thanksgiving we often complain and grumble, let us kneel and confess that we are an unthankful people.