At the heart of the biblical injunction to give thanks is the belief that our is a God, not of scarcity, but of abundance. Theologian Walter Brueggeman points out that the Bible starts out with a song of abundance. Genesis 1, he says, "is a song of praise for God's generosity. It tells how well the world is ordered. It keeps saying, 'It is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good.'... And it pictures the creator as saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' In an orgy of fruitfulness, everything in its kind is to multiply the overflowing goodness that pours from God's creator spirit."
Just how does God go about affirming this abundance in the lives of his people? For one thing, even when they are in captivity in Egypt, they multiply beyond Pharaoh's capacity to tolerate them. Then, in the inhospitable desert, God serves as their gracious host, feeding them manna for forty years. That this raggedy band of slaves eventually arrives at its destination is, Brueggeman says, "a wonder, it's a miracle, it's an embarrassment, it's irrational."
Haven't our parents always told us to count our blessings? What if that's a rather shrewd bit of advice and not a tired cliche, a strategy that will enable us to live a life of abundance rather than a life of scarcity? Gratitude, of course, does not guarantee a life of material prosperity, but it does affirm the truth of God's desire to treat us with tremendous generosity. By acknowledging the good things God has already done, our confidence in his future grace will grow. We can relax, opening our hands to the blessings he wants to give.
By contrast, thanklessness condemns us to living in fear. Instead of open hands, we become tightfisted. Closed hands cannot receive the blessings God wants to give. To be Christian and to be thankless is a contradiction in terms. It's like being a multi-millionaire who never reads her bank statements; believing herself to be impoverished, she lives in a cramped, one-room house, terrified that she will run out of money and end up living on the streets.
In addition to expressing our gratitude through prayer and praise, we can express it by practicing generosity. By giving God at least ten percent of our income, we express our faith in his ability to provide for ourselves and others. We let go of our grip on all that he has given us, willingly sharing it with others. Generosity makes us more like the God we love. By giving food to the homeless, we reflect his image in the world. What's more, the practice of tithing can function a little like a vaccine, protecting us from the contagious power of greed. It is a concrete way of rejecting the narrative of scarcity and confirming our belief in God's abundance.
