We are not the rightful arbiter of our circumstances. Under every good and happy thing and every bitter and sour thing is the smiling face of God, whose providence allows for nothing but our good (Romans 8:28). “Oh, give thanks!” That is why we do not direct our thankfulness toward people, places, and particular situations because they are too cheap and far too flimsy to stand under the weight of praise. People will let you down. Your body will decay. Life will sucker punch you in the teeth when you are not looking. So, dear friends, do not give your thanks to those things! Instead, give it to Almighty God, as the psalmist proclaims.

As the meat sweats, socially acceptable gluttony, and mild diabetic comas begin to subside, the question believers must continue to wrestle with, throughout the entire year is, “what is a life of thankfulness”? Who is responsible for the good in our life? And what is the telos of our thankfulness?
For the pagan man, the words “I am thankful for ____” must end at his own self. He is thankful for the things he likes. He is grateful for whatever pleases him and aligns with his value structure. But, what that man cannot be is thankful in any holistic way because innumerable things exist that are still displeasing to him.
An ounce of lucidity and self-reflection confirms it. Life is served up hot and ready with more examples of pain than there are pleasures. A man’s work is filled with futility; his family is struggling or even falling apart; inflation feels like a noose around his neck, and the holiday called Thanksgiving is just another opportunity to spread a little faux gratitude over the black hole of his existence. Without God, the love of Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Ghost, that annual November food fest reduces down to a “chasing after the wind” with a side of honey-baked ham and yams. All the world can do is participate in the farce of fatalism; they may eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, they surely will die. That is their lot.
Yet, for the Christian, thanksgiving is much more than a day of excess eating and football. Thanksgiving takes over all of life. It invades every darkened corner of the mind, heart, will, and soul and becomes the ongoing ritual of our earthly existence.
The reason for this is simple. Giving thanks is not limited to a day or conditioned by our preferences, opinions, or circumstances. It did not originate with pilgrims and Indians. The Christian approach to Thanksgiving can and must be different. We may give thanks in all of life, in both the good times and bad, because our gratitude is rooted in the very nature and character of God, and He is the one who will fill our mouths with laughter (Psalm 126:1-3).
Notice how the psalmist describes Thanksgiving in Psalm 107:

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” – Psalm 107:1

Let us examine this more closely so that we may understand Thanksgiving.
Holistic Thanksgiving
The psalmist begins with an unconditional statement, “Oh, give thanks,” which invites neither limitation, duration, nor qualification to our thankfulness. Instead, he welcomes us into the ongoing warmth and beauty of ubiquitous gratitude that pervades every facet of our lives. He summons us into the kind of joy that sings in a storm, dances in the rain, diligently inventories, and blankets myriad aspects of reality with hearty hopeful praises. The entire plane of existence for the believer becomes the playground of current and future joy.
Think about it from the positive side of things. We have souls filled by the Spirit of God, redeemed by the King of kings, cleansed of iniquity and stain, and commissioned both temporally and eternally by our God. “Oh, give thanks!” We have eyes to see the beauty of God’s world. We have ears to hear perfect pitch and infant giggles. We possess mouths to taste a panoply of exquisite flavors, hands to touch, and arms to wrap up the ones we love in a long embrace.
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The gospel of Christ might be summarized like this: “He was bound, so that we might be loosed from our sins.” And this salvation profoundly affects our calling. “You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). Part of our service of others is recognizing God’s lordship over our sense of right and wrong.

It is a sad fact: liberated Christians aren’t always good at practicing Christian liberty. We struggle to break free from the hold of besetting sins. Sometimes we even justify sin on the basis of our freedom in Christ. And we are tempted to hold others to the same standards as us even on matters in which they are not bound by Scripture.  This has always been so. But the last several years have made this weakness painfully obvious. Perhaps we don’t even consider Christian liberty to be very important. If you were writing a thirty-three point summary of the faith would you devote a chapter to the topic?
Our failure to practice Christian liberty is a tragic irony since in Scripture freedom is nearly synonymous with salvation—“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). Believers have been delivered from sin in order to freely obey God. So we may not allow ourselves to become enslaved again. We need to treasure our freedom in Christ and respect his sovereignty over the conscience.
Treasure Your Freedom in Christ
Christian freedom means at least three important things.
Christ Frees Believers from Sin and Condemnation
Sin advertises freedom but always enslaves. Like how human traffickers often entice their victims with promises of greater opportunities, sin promises life but leads to death (Rom. 6:23). Apart from God’s grace sin reigns in our bodies, making us obey its passions. Jesus said that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34; cf. Rom. 6:12, 14, 17, 20; Gal. 4:3).
But Christ has set believers free from sin’s guilt, God’s wrath, and the law’s curse. We live in this “present evil world” but it does not define us. Satan can trouble us but does not own us. Sin tempts us but does not dominates us. Afflictions plague us but only for a little longer. Death and the grave grieve us but Jesus has removed their sting and cancelled their victory. No longer condemned by sin (Rom. 8:1) and barred from God’s presence believers are accepted in Christ and have “free access to God.”
Christ Enabled Believers to Obey God Freely
From the beginning God promised his people that he would deliver us from our enemies that we “might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days” (Luke 1:74–75). Apart from Christ you can’t do that. Slaves obey only under compulsion out of fear of punishment. God doesn’t want us to serve him like that. The gospel of free grace in Christ says to every believer: “You are no longer a slave, but a son” (Gal. 4:7). Only God’s love for us and our love for him can make our service for him a delight (see Gen. 29:20).
Christ Frees Believers from the Yoke of the Ceremonial Law
Remember that the ceremonial laws were given to “a church under age” (19.3). So “there was a childish and slavish aspect to the tutelage of the law” (see Gal. 4:1–3).[i]
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A very simple strategy for beginning to deal with anxiety is simply to take a page and begin to list things for which to be grateful, followed by ways in which God has provided and protected in times past. The simple exercise of “looking back” at God’s prior faithfulness emboldens us to face todays trials and troubles.

Paul commands the Philippian believers to “Be careful (anxious) for nothing (Phi 4:6).” Jesus taught, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on (Mat 6:25).” In both instances the word for careful/thought is merimnaō. Very simply it means one’s cares or worries. Biblically, anxiety is caring about something to the point of distraction. Anxiety and fear tend to go together. When you are anxious over something it can very easily lead to a whole host of largely irrational fears. When we begin to carry a worry to the point where it consumes almost our entire attention we have grown anxious.
Anxiety can cripple a person to the point of almost entire inaction. Fear can breed more fears, which breeds fear of fears. Anxiety can lead to severe health issues, and fear can lead to severe relational issues. The stress of anxiety can cause heart attacks, high blood pressure, whereas fear can result in being unable to function normally in our relationships. Headaches, sleeplessness, and difficulty concentrating on one’s responsibilities are often the result of merimnaō taking over someone’s life.
We all have responsibilities and “weights” to carry.
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