Frustrated With Thanksgiving

Introduction

Ah yes, it’s that most wonderful time of the year…the nights are turning cold, and the days cool and crisp with leaves falling from trees laden with reds and oranges and yellows, and the scent of fireplaces being stoked for the first time.

Then in the kitchen, the smell of the turkey cooking with sweet potatoes, and potatoes mashed with sour cream and butter, stuffing drenched with the savory turkey juices, green bean casserole encrusted with French onion rings, all this immersed in an atmosphere of candles burning with scents like, Sugar Cookie, or Pumpkin Spice, or Autumn Wreath, filling the air.

And the children yes the children, with wide-eyed anticipation staring longingly into the fireplace, their eyes reflecting the flames that lick at the newly placed wood, and rehearsing again the day of adventure before them. Let’s see, there’s nanny and poppy, uncle Ralph and aunt Ruth, and cousins, Joe, Sam, Mary, and Emily. Oh what a blessed day it will be! Can’t you picture the Norman Rockwellian scenes?

Isn’t that the way it was at your house? I mean come on; it’s Thanksgiving…so…let’s give thanks! Or maybe your Thanksgiving was more like this…

Dad was frantically trying to rake the leaves from the front yard, motivated by the good impression he must make on his in-laws, yet impeded by the contrariness of the winds direction, and troubled by the thoughtlessness of the neighbors who did theirs yesterday! The whole time that still small voice of mom breaks into his thoughts like an ice pick, “Why did you wait until the last minute?”

Of course mom was having a better time…the turkey seems overcooked and dry, she ran out of sour cream for the potatoes, and couldn’t find French onion rings at the store for the green bean casserole. Then, to top it all off, the ill-timed, out-of-touch-with-reality voice of dad asks, “Are you sure this is going to be enough?”

And what about the children…the noise level inside the house had reached the threshold of pain, with the arguing and screaming at one another, things crashing, and somehow an inability to perceive the passage of time between their relentless inquiries of, “How much longer until nanny and poppy come?”

As a result, you might be thinking, “if this is Thanksgiving, let’s skip it this year, since I don’t feel like giving thanks!”

Well, maybe this isn’t quite the way it was at your house, or maybe it was somewhere between the two…but why is it that we are so frustrated about the holidays, and Thanksgiving in particular. Could it be that we have a loss of focus of what thanksgiving is supposed to be? Could it be that our idea of thanksgiving is more circumstantial then willful?

As we take time to look at scripture, this morning, hopefully we will see that our frustrations and anxieties are a spiritually deficient condition that only the peace of God can guard against.

Main Idea: Since the Lord is at hand, we are to be thankful, unanxious people of God!

Text:

Philippians 4:4–7 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.