THINKING AND THANKING

The words, “think” and “thank” come from the same root word.

There’s a tremendous connection between these two concepts – thankfulness and thoughtfulness.

Spurgeon was right: “We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.” And almost no one in the world has more reason to be in a thankful state of mind than those who live in the United States of America. Think about it: With all of the negatively there is around us, we Americans can rejoice in the fact that our nation was founded within the context of belief in Almighty God. We can be thankful for the individual freedom we enjoy; freedom that is unprecedented in the history of nations. And, we can be thankful that the freedom we still have is freedom enough to enable us to reverse the morally and politically downward course our society is now on, and construct a brighter future than we might be able to imagine right now.

But wait. Think about this: I have said above, that “almost no one in the world has more to be thankful for than people who live in the United States of America.” So, who are the people who have even more to be thankful for than those who should be thankful for the fact that they live in the United States of America? Answer: Those who not only enjoy the life that this great country has to offer, but also enjoy the life that God has to offer through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think about it. those of us who know Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior can be thankful that we can claim as our heavenly Father, the God we sing about in the song, God Bless America. For us, the words, "In God We Trust" inscribed on our coins and our monuments have real meaning, because they tell our spiritual story; the story of our trust in Him who ”hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18).

G. K. Chesterton, the famous 19th century writer and poet, agreed with Spurgeon that “We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.” Chesterton echoed and elaborated on this when he said, “Thanksgiving is the highest form of thought.’ So, let's think high thoughts all the time. And be thankful.

Those who do the most thanking this week will be the ones who have done the most thinking. And those who do the least thanking this week . . . Well, we know what their problem is.

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