Why giving thanks is good for you

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. The prototype of Thanksgiving dates back to the Pilgrims who celebrated their first harvest in the New World in 1621 with their new friends, the Native-Americans.

Alas, giving thanks is often the exception, not the rule. In the Gospel of Luke, 10 lepers cried out to Jesus from a distance, begging Him to heal them. Leprosy was a dread disease where one’s flesh rotted from the inside out until they died. And it was highly contagious. In those days leprosy was a virtual death sentence. But then Jesus walked by.

He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, following the law of Moses in Leviticus regarding skin diseases. As the lepers went on their way to see the priests, they were healed. They received a new lease on life thanks to their encounter with Christ.

But only one came back to thank Him. Jesus even asked, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

In a perfect world, 100% of the 10 lepers cured would have come back to say thanks. In the world we sometimes imagine it to be, perhaps 90% would’ve come back to say thank you. But in the real world, only 10% came back.

Perhaps one reason for ingratitude is a mentality of entitlement. Bob Lupton, author of Toxic Charity, said:

• Give once and you elicit appreciation.
• Give twice and you create anticipation.
• Give three times and you create expectation.
• Give four times and it becomes entitlement.
• Give five times and you establish dependency.

If the world owes us something, then why be grateful when it comes our way?

Isn’t it true that gratitude is not necessarily the norm? By nature, human beings tend to be ungrateful. My mom used to always say: “As a rule, a man's a fool; When it's hot, he wants it cool. When it's cool, he wants it hot — always wanting what is not.”

“Give a man everything he wants,” Immanuel Kant is reported to have said, “and at that moment, everything will not be everything.”

But truly thanking God and thanking others changes us. My long-time pastor, Dr. D. James Kennedy, whose broadcast ministry just celebrated 50 years of operation, called the process of giving thanks “the Christian’s magic wand,” because gratitude will transform your life.

He observes: “One reason for our ingratitude is not the paucity of God’s gifts, but rather it is the super-abundance of them, so we do not even realize how blessed we are. How many times we fail to look beyond the bread, beyond the miller, beyond the farmer, beyond the sun and the rain, to the hand of God. Thanksgiving sees beyond the second causes to that great first cause, which is the hand and heart of God.”

It's interesting how ingratitude is often the norm in the human heart. “It’s always something,” we complain. We may be in paradise — and lo and behold, we focus on the snake that is there.

We focus on the fly in the ointment, instead of the ointment itself. Too often we are ungrateful because we focus on what we don’t have, not on what we do have. Sometimes I’m astounded at the level of my own ingratitude.

It reminds me of a joke Joey Adams told in his 1974 book, The God Bit. A lady and her small son are at the beach. Suddenly a big wave comes and washes over them. As it recedes, she discovers her son is gone. She cries out to God, “Oh please, I’ll do anything. I’ll go to church. I’ll give up smoking. Anything, just give me back my son.” Then another big wave comes and her little boy is safely brought back. She looks at him, then she looks up to Heaven and says, “He had a hat!”

The founders of this country practiced thanksgiving. So too did most of our presidents, like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who made Thanksgiving an annual holiday.

But who knew giving thanks is actually linked to mental well-being?

Helpguide.org writes that gratitude helps brighten your mood and your overall mental health. They say: “This kind of thinking leads to a release of serotonin and dopamine, chemicals in the brain that are associated with happiness and pleasure. Acknowledging gratitude also decreases stress hormones. The short-term result is a reduction in anxiety and an improvement in mood. In the long-term, regularly practicing gratitude may also lead to lasting changes in your brain, priming you to be more grateful going forward.”

They also note: “The results of 2016 research seemed to indicate that people who regularly express gratitude are more patient.”

In short, gratitude is good for you. It’s great that our forefathers built an annual holiday to remind us that life goes better with thanksgiving.