Thanksgiving and Proper Motivation

This is Thanksgiving Day in the formerly United States, and other places around the world have something similar. This kind of thing is mostly done mostly in areas with Christian populations. But have you ever noticed that thankfulness does not seem to be a part of human nature?

Gratitude has to be learned. I reckon most of us can relate to giving a child a gift and a parent has to prompt, "Say thank you!" Eventually we learn to express gratitude — especially if it betters our chances of getting more stuff. More importantly, learn why we should be thankful.

Unsplash / Guillaume de Germain

Secularists recognize gifts of our Creator but try to make them into naturalistic responses or will rewrite history (such as the disgusting modification of the Pilgrims gave thanks to the natives, omitting God). Some fools thank the universe, an obvious appeal to pantheism. Others use reification and hate, such as this reaction to a Thanksgiving post (Rom. 1:21):

Today is the anniversary of the births of two people who are no longer with us, and my wife and I will be thinking of them (and others). A bit of sadness, but also being thankful that we had time with them. We all become worm food in the fundamentally flawed atheistic worldview, but the biblical worldview offers hope for eternity and a joyous grand reunion.

It has been discovered that there are health benefits to being thankful, but that is misguided at best. People often detest ingrates, and the idea of making a pretense at thankfulness because of health benefits is ultimately selfish! Pretending to be thankful for life while reject God is stupid. When we become grateful to our Creator and Redeemer, we develop the proper attitude — giving thanks is a natural response to God and others.

There are health benefits to thanksgiving, but motivation is the key.

It’s Thanksgiving, and that means scientists want to explain it without any spiritual stuffing.  As can be expected, Live Science is there to tell us all about why you should be grateful without any reference to God (or to any other recipient, for that matter).  Tia Ghose writes,

You can find out what she writes and read the rest of the article at "Good Gratitude: To Science or God?" You'll thank me later.