Greed, the Anti-Thanks

In this season of Thanksgiving, it's important to take stock of all that we have and to give thanks to God. Over the past couple of nights, my wife and I have been more deliberate around encouraging ourselves and our children to share about everyday graces and gifts. As we pray at night, we remind ourselves of the many things that we are thankful for: our family, our health, our home, our food, our friends, my job, our finances, etc.

During dinner a couple of night ago, my wife shared with me an interesting tidbit from a book that she was reading regarding Adam and Eve and how their act of eating forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not only an act of cosmic mutiny against God and an act of distrust of God's goodness and character - it was an act of profound ungratefulness. It really was the first act of anti-thanksgiving.

The Garden of Eden was a paradise flush with anything and everything that Adam and Even could have wanted, and instead of gratefulness and joy, their hearts wandered to the one thing that God told them to stay away from. Or put another way, instead of being immensely grateful, they just wanted more.

That's the interesting rub for me. The opposite of thankfulness isn't (just) ungratefulness. The opposite of thankfulness is greed. The heart's condition sways away from thankfulness and contentment when ignores the harvest which is in hand and looks covetously at what's in the distance. My heart is not and cannot be thankful when it obsesses about more job security, more money, bigger houses, newer cars, more friends and greater stature. And the truth is, many of the things we wish for aren't bad, it's just that we've lost the spirit of gracious contentedness. We have lost the ability to say, ""God, as much as I think I'd like more, I will give thanks for what I have and trust You to give me exactly what I need.

So if the goal is to be thankful, a good place to start is to stop obsessing over more.