In a couple of weeks, many of us Americans will sit down to turkey, dressing, and a slice of sweet potato pie. Someone may even ask the table to share one thing they're thankful for. Then the plates get cleared, the perhaps the football games come on, and by Black Friday morning the gratitude has been packed away with the leftovers.
So, here's the question I've been sitting with: can this Thanksgiving be more than a meal?
I believe it can. Biblical thankfulness isn't a once-a-year feeling. It's a steady posture of the heart that acknowledges God as the source of all life, provision, and salvation, regardless of what we're walking through right now.
Ten were healed. One came back.
In Luke 17:11–19, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance outside a village and cried out to Jesus for mercy. He healed every one of them. Their skin was restored, their isolation was over, and their whole lives opened back up.
Only one turned around. He came back praising God at the top of his lungs and fell at Jesus' feet to say thank you. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?"
The nine weren't bad men. They were busy. They had places to go and people to see. They got exactly what they asked for, and they moved on.
The quiet sin of forgetting
If we're honest, most of us live more like the nine than the one. Children forget to thank their parents. Mine included. I often take for granted the people who help me every day. Above all, we, myself included, fail to thank God for His blessings.
Scripture doesn't treat that lightly. Romans 1:21 describes people who "knew God" but "neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him." Ingratitude is a sin, just as surely as lying or stealing.
An ungrateful heart is a heart that has forgotten how dependent we are on God for everything. Gratitude is the act of remembering.
Gratefulness is a choice to trust
Here's the hard part: we don't naturally trust. When life gets uncertain, our first instinct is to worry, not to give thanks. That's exactly why Paul wrote, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6). Thanksgiving is how we hand our worries back to the One who can carry them. And He promises His peace in return.
That's also why Paul could say, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Not for all circumstances, but in them. Our gratitude isn't rooted in how things are going. It's rooted in who God is: good, merciful, and steadfast in His love.
Thankfulness is the natural outflow of a heart attuned to God. And a spirit of thanksgiving is always the mark of a joyful Christian.
What gratitude looks like in Barnardsville
I saw this kind of thankfulness up close at the beginning of October when we went to Barnardsville. For the second year in a row, an LHCC team traveled to Barnardsville, a mountain community still rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. We went back to visit families we've walked alongside since the storm and to help elderly neighbors make repairs to their homes. Our friends at Dillingham Presbyterian Church opened their doors and hosted us.
These are families who have lost a great deal. Yet repeatedly, what we met wasn't bitterness. It was the posture of that one leper who came back: hearts that remember where help comes from and say thank you anyway.
That's the kind of gratitude that outlasts a meal. And it's the kind of gratitude that moves us to act.
Be the one who comes back
Five days after Thanksgiving is Giving Tuesday, December 1. I can't think of a better way to carry our gratitude past the dinner table.
When you give to Learning Help Centers of Charlotte, you're turning thanks into something a child and a family can feel. Your gift supports all four parts of our ministry: Reading, Feeding, Healing, and Discipleship. It helps us "train up a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22:6), right here in Charlotte and in places like Barnardsville.
This Thanksgiving, I'd ask you to please do three things:
Pause and give thanks. Before the meal, name one way God has carried you and blessed you and your family this year.
Give on Giving Tuesday. Use the Donate to LHCC link to make a gift on December 1, or any time before December 31. https://www.lhcclt.org/donate
Invite someone in. Share this blog post with a friend, your church, or your small group, and ask if your employer will match your gift.
Nine walked away. One came back. Let's be the ones who come back.
With gratitude,
Brent Morris
ED
LHCC