Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 176 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Thanksgiving or Thanks-Living?

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 176 of our Trek, and yesterday we shared additional details about the Blessings of the First Thanksgiving. Today we want to explore the concept of Thanksgiving or Thanks-living to determine what the difference is. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. This episode will air on Monday, and we are rapidly coming up on Thanksgiving this week. We still have much work and preparations that need to be completed before Thursday, but it is always such a special time of year.  We have so much to be thankful for. We are thankful that we can once again celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends at The Big House. God has been gracious to allow us to be caretakers of this family heritage, and we are pleased that it can be shared by so many.

It is time to head out on our Trek for today. As we hike, we have time to remember all the blessings in our own lives, and we want to consider these two questions:

• Do our lives only show thankfulness and gratitude during special times or seasons?
• Do our lives reveal that thankfulness and gratitude are part of the very fabric of who we are?

Thanksgiving or Thanks-living

Our speech is a great revealer of what is in our hearts. It is from the abundance of the heart or mind that the mouth speaks. Jesus put it in these terms in Matthew 12:33-37, “A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad.  You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.  A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.  And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.  The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.”

Jesus said again in Matthew 15:8, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” We can say we are thankful, but our attitude and action will give us away. To quote Jesus for a third time in Matthew 12:37 he says, “The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” If we are truly thankful in our hearts, it will be reflected in how we live. Our Thanksgiving will become thanks-living.

Thanks-living is about attitude. Zig Ziglar is quoted saying, “Attitude determines your altitude.” I believe that is true in our spiritual and natural life. I know some gifted and talented people who seem to stay perpetually grounded and go nowhere simply because they have rotten attitudes.

The Bible is full of people who lived a life of thanks-living. This attitude helped David endure years on the run, sleeping in caves and the wilderness, while being hunted like an animal to be slaughtered by Saul. Instead of becoming a victim or an old sour puss, David allowed God to use all this to make him into one of the greatest kings to ever walk the earth.

Thanks-living is not living in denial. It is not the same as denying the pain of a situation or pretending that everything is fine when it really is not. Thanks-living is being able to be thankful in spite of our circumstances because we choose to look at our life and circumstances through the filter of God’s love and goodness. Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Thessalonica 5:18, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

Thanks-living is about how we treat other people. David wrote in Psalms 16:9, “No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety.”  Peter quotes the same verse with a twist to it in Acts 2:25,  “King David said this about him: I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.”

Our tongue, or what we say, is our glory or our downfall. The word “glory” literally means weight or honor. It means to honor, to give honor, and to impart value. That is what our words are for.

We are to establish, nurture, and protect relationships with our words like Proverbs 15:23 tells us, “Everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time!”  Also in Proverbs 15:4 we read, “Gentle words are a tree of life; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.” Ephesians 4:29 puts it this way, “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.”  Then in Ephesians 4:15 we see, “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.”

That is what thanks-living looks like.

Thanks-living is also about receiving and giving. Jesus was quoted in Acts 20:35, “And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” A life of thanks-living revolves around what we have received. Being daily conscious of all Christ has already given us, focusing on what God is doing rather than what He is not doing will cause our hearts to overflow with generosity.

Ann Voskamp captures this so well in this quote:

“Thanksgiving only becomes thanks-living when joy in the blessings given from above overflows into the blessings given all around. Thanksgiving only becomes thanks-living when the thanks for His vertical, coming-down grace is expressed as a horizontal, reaching-out grace. Thanksgiving only becomes thanks-living when thanksgiving to God overflows into a joy of giving.”

May our Thanksgiving truly become thanks-living.

With the lessons learned on our hike today, let us turn our occasional Thanksgiving into daily Thanks-Living. One way to do this is to encourage your friends and family to join us each day and come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy as we continue our trek and focus on how wise it is to be thankful in a series of short, inspiring stories and concepts.

That will finish our podcast for today. Remember to listen to your daily dose of wisdom each day. Please share Wisdom-Trek with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

If you would like to be added to our weekly email update for Wisdom-Trek, just text the word “Wisdom” to 44222 on your phone, and you will receive a message asking for your email address. It is very quick and easy to do.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!