Canada’s Thanksgiving celebration comes a full month earlier than the US version. I have to admit that I don’t envy my US friends when they go from one celebration with no time to take a breath before having to prepare for another one. This year it wasn’t me cooking the dinner, it was my Aunt. She treated us to burnt ham which tasted quite good! No cook worth their salt appreciates burning the food, but there we all were, cheerfully nibbling away at burnt edges while she apologized up a storm. Honestly, I think burnt ham tastes better than store-bought beef jerky. . . But the food really isn’t the focus of the meal anyway. Thanksgiving is a time for. . . well. . . thanksgiving. To put it another way, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, to count our blessings, and to give God a very rare gift in today’s society. . . the gift of gratitude. Too many of us go through life without showing much appreciation for what God is so busy doing on our behalf every day. To just stop and show some gratitude totally means the world to God! Scripture says that God inhabits the praises of His people. Praise is different from worship in that it involves the showering of appreciation over someone for what they have done. Praise is the declaring to others how pleased, amazed, thankful, etc., that we are for someone’s achievement or effort. So when we praise God, we are showing amazement, appreciation, gratitude, and exultation over what He has and continues to do for us. Our praise shouldn’t stop there however. God showed me in very plain language one day, that I was so focused on what He was doing, that I wasn’t looking at His face! The revelation actually hurt! Here I was, thinking I was being thankful and showing God gratitude and appreciation for all His efforts in my family life, when God wanted me to look Him in the face and appreciate Him for who He is! I had to stop and back up a moment. . . While it isn’t wrong to appreciate God’s efforts in our lives, and while it’s true we don’t show God a heart of gratitude often enough, it is terribly wrong if that’s all He ever gets from us. God longs for relationship with His prize creation! Relationship means spending time together, intimate time together getting to know each other and the deepest reaches of how the other person ticks. God longs for that with us, the body of Christ, the Church. It isn’t so that God gets to know us in ever-deepening levels. He knows all there is to know about us, foibles and all. This relational time together is that we can get to know God in ever increasing measure, learn how He ticks, learn how He thinks, learn how He does things and why, etc. Relationship requires being completely open to the other person, a position of vulnerability that can cause previously hurt people to feel threatened and exposed. But as God showed me several years ago, this vulnerability toward God is necessary for God to bring healing, wholeness, and security in His arms. So as I do my weekly post a day late, these are the thoughts coming to mind. As we show God our appreciation, let us not forget to appreciate Him for who He is, not merely for all He’s done. He’s done much, but none of it would have been done if not for who He is, the character He has, and the incredible love and justice that together with wisdom and mercy, keep us on the path we should walk. So here’s a happy Belated Canadian Happy Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for?