November is the month of thanksgiving in the United States. President Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." Subsequently Thanksgiving became a yearly appointed federal holiday and signed into the Holidays Act in 1870. If an entire country signed into law a day to be thankful how much more us Christians who God has done so much for? We have no choice but to be thankful.

Webster dictionary describes thanksgiving as “a public acknowledgment or celebration of divine goodness”. How often do we have a public acknowledgment of divine goodness? Public here does not mean for other people. I choose to believe that public means between you and someone else, in this case God. Acknowledging him for his goodness to you. Dalai Lama said, “roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” Another person describes thanksgiving as recognizing who God is and what he has done for you. The key point here is “acknowledge”. It is to be able to identify, recognize and accept that something has happened to you. Being thankful is not a hard thing to do. In fact, it is easy. You just show gratitude to the one who bestows upon you something you do not have and cannot do or obtain on your own.

We celebrate Thanksgiving for one day here where we sit together as a family, eat turkey and spend time together to be grateful, but as Christians we should celebrate thanksgiving every day of our lives. Dalai Lama’s thoughts on being thankful is shown in this statement.

“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

If he thinks this way on gratitude what stops us children of God from acknowledging the ONE who made us who and what we are? Most of the people we admire in our society take time to acknowledge a higher being for the blessings that they have. They understand that all the things they achieve is due to some cosmic interference.

David was one such person. He wrote most of the books of Psalms and a lot of these were on gratitude or thanksgiving. One of my favorites is Psalm 9 verse 1 that says

“I will praise you Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all the wonderful things you have done.”

I am not saying that “life” will not happen. I am saying be thankful for everything. Be intentional about being grateful. Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist, while in the hospital recovering from a shot to the head by a Pakistani gunman at the age of 15 in the year 2012 said this,

"I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and today I can speak and I'm getting better day by day. It is just because of the prayers of people, and because of these prayers, God has given me this new life, and this is a second life. This is a new life and I want to serve the people."

1 Thessalonians 5: 18 says it beautifully

“Whatever happens, give thanks, because it is God's will in Christ Jesus that you do this.”

This year has been particularly hard worldwide, but we have things that we are thankful for. As we begin this month, I want to encourage you to practice thankfulness. Be like Shahrukh Khan the Indian actor that said "Gratitude should be the attitude.” Let your life embody gratefulness. Join the million others practicing gratefulness. No matter how small, or big, how difficult, or easy, how uncomfortable or comfortable, make a note of all the things you are grateful for and at the end of the month, take a look at that note and see all the things the Lord almighty had done for us.

I employ you to join us this month, as we take the thankfulness challenge. Everyday this month, we will be putting out a different challenge each day on all our social media platforms and we hope you participate. Invite your friends and families and let us express our gratitude to the God of heaven.