Thanksgiving is coming up and I’ve been meditating on this passage in 1 Thessalonians 5, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” As we seek to live with thankful hearts before the Lord, here are some ideas of how to get our thanks and praise on:

1) Begin and End your Day with Thanks: Thank the Lord for the gift of a new day. Thank Him for sleep, for the strength to face the opportunities and challenges of the day with grace. Thank him at the end of the day for all the ways you saw his hand at work that day.

2) Practice Giving Thanks As a Family: Take turns sharing each day with one another what you are most thankful for that day. Built into my morning devotion time with the girls is “thankful time” – we sing a little song that they love and then each person gets a turn to share what they are most thankful for. It is a great way not only to turn all of our hearts towards the Lord in gratitude, but also uncover what is most important to those you love.

3) Give Thanks for Daily Bread: Many families already say “grace” at meal times, but this simple practice shouldn’t be passed over ~ it helps us to stop briefly before digging into our food to remember and thank the one who provided it in the first place. Often when we sing our “thankful song” together, I am reminded that the God who provides for us will also sustain us in times to come and it fills me with gratefulness and hope.

4) Keeping a Gratitude Journal: Ann Voskamp’s bestselling book, “One Thousand Gifts” goes into this idea in much more detail, but the idea is simple – keep a running list of the things that you are thankful for. Ann found she began with seemingly small things that made her smile like “jam piled high on toast,” or “sleep – deep and long.” This type of documentation can help us to be aware of blessings we may have overlooked otherwise. By writing these “gifts” down, we take a picture of them in our memories and choose to focus on how they have enriched our lives.

5) Replace Grumbling with Thanksgiving: We all have “pressure points” that seem to pull the worst out of us. I saw this picture on Facebook that sums up this point entirely. The original source for this list and photo is Chelsea Lee Smith of MomentsADay.com :

What may seem like a burden to us are often great blessings in disguise – it all depends on our perspective. So – what are you thankful for today?