Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

It is 10:00 a.m. as I write this post on Thanksgiving Day and I have finished my cooking.  I will post pictures later. But I only made veggies (and some dressing), and I am headed over to my sister's house at noon. She doesn't have cable, so I will miss football (darn). But that's okay. I will watch the highlights on ESPN later on tonight.

But as you can see, I want to do something different on a holiday, as I usually put up a banner of some sort and go on about my business.

I have been meditating on a particular scripture for nearly a year now.

Colossians 3:16 (Message Version)

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

There's a lot going on in that scripture. But for some reason the part I highlighted in red... that's the part that has stuck in me. That's the part I've been meditating and chewing on.

Those three simple words... And cultivate thankfulness... are action packed.

The word "cultivate" is an interesting word. When I see it, I think of a garden, and how you have to break up the soil to prepare the garden for seed, or to keep the plants growing properly.

There are several definitions of the word "cultivate":

Prepare or use land for gardening.
Try to develop or acquire a quality sentiment or skill
Grow or maintain living tissues in culture
Try to win the friendship or favor of someone
Apply oneself to improving or developing one's minds or manners

Whatever the definition may be, it involves some action on our parts... prepare, develop, acquire, grow, maintain, favor, apply and so on.

Back to that statement... "Cultivate Thankfulness"

To me, it means work on my thankfulness (or thanksgiving). Be mindful of it. Think on it, meditate on it. Grow in that area. Apply myself in that area.

Cultivate, cultivate, cultivate... just like working the soil of the ground, I have to continually work on being thankful, working it into the very fabric of my life.

And you would think no one would have to say "cultivate thankfulness", or it wasn't important to point out. For we all have things for which to be thankful, right?

But let me ask you a question...

How many people have you been around who murmur and complain incessantly? How much have you murmured and complained?

How many thankful people have you been around? More specifically, how many people have you been around who always find the good in a situation and who always find the silver lining of the dark cloud?

If you're anything like me, and if you are paying close attention, the numbers are severely lopsided. There are many many more complainers than thankful people in our lives. People are well developed in either one direction or the other. And that's sad.

That's why that verse has stayed on my mind.

Our hearts are very fertile soil. Anything-attitudes, beliefs, morals, idiosyncracies, etc- will grow in this "soil" when planted. And it will grow like crazy.

As for myself, on this Thanksgiving day, and frankly all this year, I've made a considerable effort to grow thankfulness in this fertile soil of mine.

And I'm glad of it. It has freed my mind.

So today, be mindful of one thing:

"And Cultivate Thankfulness"

And the more thankful we are, the more there will have in the future to be thankful for.

I can promise you that.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!