Surprisingly, contemplation of the arrival of another Thanksgiving in a fews days brought together two totally disconnected experiences I used to love as a kid. One was the feeling of sitting in my grandma’s farmhouse kitchen and watching her make cornbread. The process always seemed almost magical to me. She’d gather her ingredients on the red-checkered tablecloth that covered the simple wooden table, and with few, if any, measuring instruments, she’d blend a cup or so of this, a handful of that, a pinch of something else and put them together in a big bowl. She kept the flour in a large bin on a nearby shelf, with the corn meal next to it. The salt was in a round, blue box, and there was a smaller yellow box that had something in it that I didn’t understand. Ma called it baking powder and said that was what helped turn the other stuff into cornbread.
A Different Kind of “Magic” ~
The other experience I loved was watching my mom take Alka Seltzer for what she called “heartburn”. I wasn’t sure how her heart got on fire in the first place, but I was always rather glad it did because watching her drop those pills into a glass of water was
mesmerizing for me. I was fascinated at how you could put those same dry white pills in a glass or box and shake them ‘til your arm fell off, and they wouldn’t do anything. But drop them into a glass of water, and they would explode into a glassful of living, moving bubbles. Mom said the bubbles were in there all the time, but it took the water to bring them to life. I didn’t really understand how it all worked, and though it may seem silly now, it was one of those little magical moments that stayed with me.
Obviously, Alka Seltzer and baking powder don’t generally find themselves sharing space in the same conversation, but today, they can help illustrate that simply adding an activating ingredient to our behavioral recipe can make wonderful and magical things happen. And there’s no better time to consider it than the season when two of God’s favorite behavioral expressions get moved to center stage. Thanksgiving and Christmas are times when we give a lot of lip service and marketing attention to two expressions that represent fundamental characteristics of God’s nature – gratitude and generosity.
Fighting a Cultural Current ~
For most of the year, those qualities are only highlighted in rare and unusual circumstances, like heroic gestures that emerge in crisis situations or in the aftermath of some tragic incident. Unfortunately, the overall current of the general culture is constantly 
moving us in the opposite direction. Gratitude and generosity get buried under the endless barrage of ads fostering envy and the compelling desire to obtain the latest version of some digital device, fund some new fashion “look” or take up the latest costly new hobby that’s been taking TikTok by storm. And among our younger population, a growing sense of entitlement is prevalent; i.e., believing that things like health, happiness, prosperity, and at least a middle-class income are “personal rights” that someone or some thing (like the government) owes to all of them. Drifting in and out of that parade is its contrasting companion, the specter of scarcity. That’s the fear that someone or some thing, like maybe the government, will eventually move in and take it all away from us.
Sadly, in many ways, attitudes like that taint the approach to giving. Giving isn’t always an expression of the kind of generosity God approves of. Giving can be fueled by things like guilt, obligation, or the expectations associated with tradition. Giving can be more of an investment than a gift freely given. Offering a valuable gift can be a mechanism used to impress someone or to achieve some benefit from either recognition or other non-monetary personal profit. But the God we serve is different and calls us to a life that sometimes doesn’t seem to make sense. On the one hand, He wants us to be loving, prosperous, joyful, happy, and fulfilled. But on the other, He advocates practicing self-denial and considering the welfare of others to be just as important as – and sometimes more so than – our own. One of the many questions that come to mind is how to manage and maintain such a paradoxical style of living.
Working Together ~
So, if you’re wondering, that’s where the baking powder and Alka Seltzer come in. When we observe gratitude and generosity in action in the lives of God’s people, it seems obvious that they function as reciprocal activating ingredients for each other. Thanksgiving, as God defines it, is a mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual reaction that acknowledges things like …
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- We have received something of value as a free gift.
- We didn’t earn that valuable thing through efforts of our own.
- We didn’t expect it and may not have considered ourselves deserving of it.
- We may not have asked for it or even indicated a need for it.
- We contributed nothing to the cost the giver paid to acquire it.
- It came with no demands or expectations.
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What kind of process might we suppose that an awareness like that could kick into gear? Jesus inserted Himself into a parable designed to illustrate the obvious difference between those who were part of His Kingdom and those who had rejected Him. Of those who had received Him, He said this:
…I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me. (Matthew 25:34–36 NKJV)
He repeated the exact same scenarios to those who rejected Him – except for the addition of “you did not” give or do any of those things the others generously offered. If we ask why the first group did it, the answer is obvious. When they were hungry, He gave. When they were thirsty, He gave. When they were strangers, He took them in. When they were
naked, He clothed them. When they were sick, He showed up. When they were in prison, He went to them. Gratitude is the activating ingredient that makes generosity feel natural. Gratitude makes giving something away feel like we’ve gained something. Gratitude calls us to take what we’ve been given, pour it into others, and watch magic things happen. When generosity is activated, hungry folks get fed, thirst is quenched, strangers get families, the needy get clothed, sick people get care, and the imprisoned get compassion – and sometimes freedom.
A Legacy of Giving ~
One thing the Church of Jesus Christ has exemplified throughout its history has been a willingness to give what others would not give, go where others would not go, and do what others would not do, to minister to those that others would not touch. Their generosity knew no bounds because what they had received was boundless. The followers of Jesus in every generation have known what it is to be broken, sick, lonely, hungry, naked, imprisoned and hopeless. The followers of Jesus have gone, given, served, and loved because they’ve felt the gratitude born in that very moment when they recognize that the One who so loved the “world” had given all He had to send one of His followers to carry His love directly to them.
A powerful process begins when a heart filled with gratitude meets a hungry soul in need. God’s love goes to work and a transformational cycle of provision and praise comes to life. The gratitude and praise that fills the heart of the hungry soul who was fed, gives birth to a desire to share that joy with others and a spirit of generosity is born.
Gratitude and generosity can be so much more than ideas we unpack and talk about for one special season each year and then leave behind when the new year begins. When we add these two divinely-ordained activating ingredients to our recipe for life every day, we can create an endless living cycle of unexpected provision, unrestrained praise, and inexpressible joy.
So, rather than simply saying “Happy Thanksgiving,” how about this . . . May God use our “Happy Thanksgiving” greetings to activate a life of “Joyful Giving.”
“TWEETABLES” ~ Click to tweet and share from the quotes below. Each one links directly back to this article through Twitter . . .
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- Gratitude calls us to pour what we’ve been given into others. Magic begins. Generosity feeds the hungry and thirsty, brings family to strangers, clothes the naked, cares for the sick, and provides compassion and sometimes freedom to the imprisoned. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- The Church of Jesus Christ has exemplified a willingness to give what others wouldn’t, go where others wouldn’t go, and do what others wouldn’t to minister to those others wouldn’t touch. Their generosity knew no bounds because what they had received was boundless. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- Jesus followers have gone, given, served and loved because they felt the gratitude born in that moment of being broken, sick, lonely, hungry, naked, or imprisoned when the One who so loved the world gave all He had to send someone to them. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- God’s love goes to work and a transformational cycle of provision and praise comes to life. The gratitude to praise that fills the heart of a hungry soul who was fed gives birth to a desire to share that joy with others. A spirit of generosity is born. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
- When we add two divinely-ordained activating ingredients, gratitude and generosity, to our recipe for life every day, we can create an endless living cycle of unexpected provision, unrestrained praise, and inexpressible joy. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
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