*Sarpali.us

Awkward. The Thanksgiving meal, which many people work so hard to prepare, is ready to eat. The game on t.v. is put on pause and the kids are hushed and told they need to come join the rest of the family. It's that time. Time to pray. 

And it's awkward. 

It's awkward because there may very well be people standing in a circle or around the table, holding hands, who very infrequently actually bow their heads to thank God for anything. Granted, you may be blessed with a very large, strong Christian family that takes this moment very seriously and you should praise God for such a tremendous gift! But not everyone, ineed most people are not in this situation.  

If you're the Christian in the group or your perceived to be the "super-christian" in the group, you may very well be asked to lead everyone in prayer. Your family may even go around the room and share something they're thankful for. 

The list of thanks are sometimes trivial and sometimes not. Little Johnny may thank God for good food and that Christmas is right around the corner. Others may thank God for good health or for family or for their jobs. These are all good things to be thankful for and we ought to always be thanking the Lord for them. 

But they are the gravy of Thanksgiving, not the glory of Thanksgiving. 

We can bring weight and glory and significance to our prayer or discussions on Thanksgiving by thanking God for the greatest blessing we can conceive of. God has rescued us from our slavery to sin. While we were sinners, he loved us. Despite our resistance of him, he has overcome that resistance and granted us faith in Christ. 

Consider Romans 6:17-19

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

What if we redeem the awkwardness of the Thanksgiving prayers by thanking God for the cross. Thank him for his rescuing of us? Thank him for overcoming our sin and our desparation. 

We will only pray and think this way if we really and truly understand the depth of the gift God has given us. 

Are you more thankful for God's salvation or for God's blessings? Are you more thankful for the gifts of Jesus or for Jesus himself?

Thanks be to God for loving us in such a rescuing way.