Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  A day of gratitude.  A day to spend with families, if we are lucky enough to have them, thinking about all the ways in which we are blessed.  It’s one of my all time favorite holidays, and it comes with memories of growing up in a huge family, waiting forever for dinner to be ready, and warm laughter and games with my siblings.

For the last few weeks leading up to this, I’ve been doing some serious thinking about gratitude and what it means.  Is it a state of being, like joy?  Or an emotion we feel?  Or a set of behaviors and actions?  Possibly a combination of all of the above?

John F. Kennedy was quoted as saying “as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that our highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

A few other thematically similar quotes that I found while pondering this topic:

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Author Ward

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.  Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” – Henri Frederic Amiel

There was a gospel reading the other week about the three men who are entrusted with the master’s gold while he is away. Each of the three men is given an amount of gold (let’s just say a lot, a medium amount, and a little).  The man with a lot and the man with a medium amount both take what has been entrusted to them and do something with it.  Make it grow.  Make it multiply.  Put it to work for the master as he expects of them.  The third guy — well, we all know what happens there.  He buries it.  Doesn’t want to take the risk of losing it or making a mistake, and so he sits on it – keeping it pristine and ready to hand back to the master upon his return.

I remember hearing this gospel growing up and being so confused when the master returns and is angry with the third man.  He got his stuff back exactly like he left it — what’s to be mad about?  Growing up in a household of family chaos, I knew that I personally would have been delighted to have had something – anything – returned to me after any amount of time in exactly the same condition I left it.  Sure, it’s great that the other two guys came back with a little something extra.  I can see where the master would be delighted.  But I struggled with the anger and casting out of the third servant.

As I’ve gotten a bit older (I dare not say wiser), I think I have a better grasp on what this particular gospel may be trying to teach me.  It’s related to gratitude.

We’ve each been entrusted with gifts. Varying degrees, sure.  Some of us with many gifts, some with a medium amount, and some with just a few.  But we all have them.  And hopefully we experience an emotion of thankfulness and gratitude in what we’ve been given — probably especially on Thanksgiving Day when it’s the socially acceptable thing to do.  Feel and say thank you.  Words. Emotions. Prayers of Thanksgiving.

But I had someone challenge me recently in a way that unsettled me and honestly probably got me thinking about this topic in the first place.  This person said something to the effect of “let’s assume you have all of these wonderful blessings and have been given so much.  And you thank God every day for all that you’ve been given and for your happy life.  What do you think He will say when you get to Heaven?  You’re welcome?”

Ouch.

No.  With reflection, I don’t think that’s what God would say. I think God would ask for an accounting of what I did with those gifts and blessings.  How did I use them to bring people to Him or show others His love?  How did I make the gifts multiply while they were entrusted to me?

Am I guilty of burying them?

True gratitude isn’t just acknowledging that we’ve been given something amazing; it’s also about accepting the responsibility to do something even more amazing with it.  To say “thank you” through actions.  To put the work into careful examination of our lives – not just in the things that feel like blessings, but also in the things that feel like trials.  To try to understand how it all comes together.

I believe we are each being uniquely prepared for something, and the chances are good that it’s not just a comfortable retirement and a sense of contentment that we sent our children to college.  There’s work to be done.  People that need us.  And to the degree that we have been blessed with gifts, we have the responsibility that comes with true gratitude to make those gifts multiply by putting them to work.

I don’t want to underrate or belittle saying thank you or offering prayers of thanksgiving.  I find them to be one of the most beautiful forms of prayer.  But to say thank you and do nothing diminishes the gratitude.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  A day of gratitude.  Maybe the perfect day to make room in our minds to think about not just the things that make us feel happy and blessed but in what we can do to put our gifts to work and demonstrate excellence in the things we have been uniquely prepared to do.