WHAT ARE WE THANKFUL FOR

Thanksgiving in the US is right around the corner. It’s a wonderful day, set aside as a day to be thankful to God for His many blessings upon this nation. It has become a day to eat turkey and watch football, but even with that, most people acknowledge that Thanksgiving means a day to give thanks.

So what are we thankful for? Some people might answer their health; some would say family. We might be thankful to have a job, a house, a car. When we sit down and count our blessings, as God says, we can never encompass them (14:34, 16:18). But we know it’s important to try.

[14:7] Your Lord has decreed: "The more you thank Me, the more I give you." But if you turn unappreciative, then My retribution is severe.

[31:20] Do you not see that GOD has committed in your service everything in the heavens and the earth, and has showered you with His blessings― obvious and hidden? Yet, some people

argue about GOD without knowledge, without guidance, and without the enlightening scripture

This verse tells us that God’s blessings are both evident and less easy to see. Some of the obvious ones are mentioned above, but it also includes a beautiful sunset (39:5), fruits in their colorful wrappings (36:35), our vision and our hearing (32:9), water when we turn on the tap (56:68-70), a good night’s sleep (40:61), food on the table (2:172).

What about some of the less obvious or at least less tangible blessings? I think it’s important to reflect often on the gift of guidance. Without God’s incredible mercy of guiding me to His path, I wouldn’t be writing this article today, and you wouldn’t be reading it. We’d be like the majority of people in the world, going about this worldly life with no thought of God and His creations. We ask God many times each day in the Contact Prayer to “guide us in the right path.” We need to be thankful for the fact that God gave us the prayers,

the means to contact our Creator. It’s a tremendous blessing.

[35:3] O people, remember GOD's blessings upon you. Is there any creator other than GOD who provides for you from the heaven and the earth? There is no other god beside Him. How could you deviate?

Tied closely to that is awareness of the Hereafter, the great gift of knowing that we will all come before God on the Day of Resurrection and be held accountable for our actions here on earth. God tells us in 38:46 that this is a blessing from Him: We bestowed upon them a great blessing: awareness of the Hereafter. If we had no idea of what to expect, we wouldn’t be concerned about being righteous. We wouldn’t care to do the things that please God. We would be confused and ignorant. Having the awareness makes us want to lead a righteous life, to strive in God’s cause, and to seek the ways and means to Him.

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