Okay, gratituder isn’t really a word, but it should be. Unofficially, a gratituder is the mechanism within you that processes and expresses gratitude for the blessings you enjoy.

Everyone has a gratituder, but like most mechanisms, a gratituder needs to be recalibrated from time to time. Otherwise, it won’t work properly. For example, if you are 100% blessed, but only 30% grateful, that means your gratituder needs recalibrated.

Even worse, your gratitutuder might be frozen up and stuck in the off position, meaning you are 100% blessed but 0% grateful. If so, not to worry, this just means it’s time to recalibrate.

Thanksgiving presents the perfect opportunity to recalibrate your gratituder. There is something about the season that prompts us to take stock of our blessings – even in the midst of personal challenges – and adjust our gratituder accordingly.

For me, moments with friends and family seem to make it a little easier than usual to see that that my life is dripping with the grace and goodness of God, like turkey and dressing dripping with gravy.

Friend, in Christ, you are 100% blessed. Through Jesus, you have a load of benefits that are out of this world (acceptance, freedom, redemption, and forgiveness, to name just a few), yet not so out of this world that they aren’t useful to you right now, while you are in this world. In the here and now you have Christ’s abiding presence, and for the future you have constant hope. What a deal.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, -Ephesians 1:3

Chances are, life isn’t perfect for you right now…the usual work pressures, relationship challenges, and personal struggles have a way of hovering and harassing even the strongest of hearts.

Or maybe someone you love will not be at the table this Thanksgiving and you find yourself bracing for it.

I am reminded of something a wise person once told me,

“Gratitude isn’t necessarily a feeling. Gratitude is an attitude that we choose to have, in spite of our circumstances.”

True enough.

No matter what else is going on this Thanksgiving, in Jesus, you are 100% blessed. May the Lord help you to be 100% grateful.

And, by the way, thanks for helping me recalibrate my gratituder.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.