THE ABSENCE OF THANKSGIVING

What is the opposite of giving thanks? It seems like the opposite of giving thanks is just, well, not saying thank you. It’s just silence. But that’s not the whole picture. Often, the absence of one thing is replaced by the presence of something else. If you aren’t giving thanks, you’re likely ignoring, grumbling, or complaining.

Ultimately, not being thankful throughout your day shows a lack of trust in and dependence on God. We might be tempted to think, “but I didn’t grumble or complain against God, so that’s good, I’m fine.” But by ignoring God throughout your day, you are guaranteed to be more selfish and focused on yourself. Forgetting to acknowledge God also can bolster your pride because you feel like you’re in control or lead you to despair because of your inability to control your life. The thing is, you were never the source of the good in your life and you’re not ultimately in control of your life. You do have free will so you are responsible to make God-honoring choices, but you are not the center of the universe. The rich fool in Luke 12:13-21 learned this lesson the hard way. Not living a life of thanksgiving is to ignore the God who is sovereign over your life. Instead of ignoring Him, we should be thanking and praising Him all day long!

The most visible things we replace thanksgiving with are grumblings and complaints. But I think we often excuse the grumbling because we are just being genuine or expressing our feelings or bringing up a complaint so others can pray about it. It’s important that we’re very clear about what grumbling and complaining look like because it can lead to some serious deep-rooted ignored sin in our lives. Since we already have been talking about inner thoughts, let’s just address internal complaints.

The sneakiest replacing of thanksgiving happens when we grumble and complain to ourselves. God tells us to “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). If we are in a habit of grumbling in our minds every time something doesn’t go the way we expected, our minds will become a breeding ground for selfishness, bitterness, and unrighteous anger. It’s important that we cultivate good pathways for our thoughts. This is where I struggle the most which is why I covered this idea in another blog post. My initial reaction to a change in plans is often a negative thought which can easily become bitterness about my situations and sometimes evolves into unrighteous anger that blinds me with entitlement and self-pity. One helpful prevention is trying to find one thing I am thankful for right away. It helps change my perspective instead of just dwelling on myself and what I want.

The mind is a battleground for sin and godliness. Take a look at how Paul processes through this struggle in Romans 7:21-25a, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Did you notice how he ended this section? With thanksgiving. The struggle is real, but cultivating a thankful life helps us stay in the fight instead of yielding to ungodliness.

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