November 21st, 2007 by Pastor Matt

As Thanksgiving approaches I’ve read tons of blogs, tons of articles, listened to podcasts, and sermons, and tips of the day and on and on all about being thankful.  I was thinking to myself though, “everyone is thankful around thanksgiving.”  It’s on your mind, it’s in your head.  The key is to somehow be thankful when it’s NOT on your mind.  Well, how do we do that?

I’m not going to answer that… you’re going to have to figure that out on your own.  I’m just going to let you know what could happen if you don’t figure out how to keep “thanks” on your mind.

If there’s no ‘thank you’ then people are going to be confused.  I’ll never forget when I was driving up north last year and realized that not everyone says thank you.  Here in Texas, it seems like everybody says thank you!  Maybe it’s the little hand wave after somebody let’s you over in traffic, or the smile and nod when someone holds the door open.  I was very confused one day when traveling up north as I held the door open for two ladies and they did absolutely nothing.  They weren’t talking together, they weren’t distracted, they just intentionally looked away and walked through the door.  Wha?  I actually paused for a second and thought about what just happened.  I wondered if I was somehow being rude, or if maybe they thought I was doing something strange.  When they didn’t acknowledge that they were thankful for what I was doing, I wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong.  Those around you will think the same thing!  If they’re helping you, your ministry, your department, your… whatever, and you’re not thanking them, they will wonder if they’re doing something wrong.  If you are in any leadership position you need to be regularly thanking those who are helping.

No ‘thank you’ will result in confusion and low self-confidence.