SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR

When I had emergency shoulder surgery from an accident while in Yellowstone, I was transported in a two-hour ambulance ride to a small hospital in Jackson. I was blessed with a fine orthopedic team there, very experienced from treating broken bones from all sorts of extreme sports accidents. When it came time to leave the hospital, the man who brought my meals each day presented me with a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread wrapped in cellophane with a note attached that said he hoped this would make my trip home a little sweeter. It was a little thing, but his kindness really lifted my spirits!

Opportunities to Bless Others

In the Thanksgiving season, we are provided with so many opportunities to practice being thankful by helping others. We give prayers of thanks for God’s grand plan for our redemption, but we also give thanks for His simple daily provisions. As the hands and feet of Jesus, we must be on the lookout for those opportunities where we can make life a little sweeter for someone else. It is the appropriate response for all our blessings.

It is easy to overlook these possibilities. A neighbor you know is alone for the holiday. She might be included in yours. Those who must work at the grocery store on the holiday may appreciate a kind word of thanks. Not a day goes by that the mail does not contain a heart-warming request for donations. There are requests for holiday gifts for veterans and their families, meals for the homeless, and shoes for needy children. We might like to help them all, but it is easy to just pass.

Paul gave practical advice to believers about living in grateful response to God’s blessings. “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17). We are called to resemble God the Father and His Son, Jesus, in compassion for others, in humble service, in kindness to all, and with gratitude in our hearts. This includes all our daily actions, great and small.

Fruits of our Faith

The Westminster Confession of Faith 16.2 helpfully explains the role of good works in our lives as Christians:

These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and living faith. By them believers show their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, build up their fellow believers, adorn the profession of the gospel, shut the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God. They are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, so that, bearing fruit unto holiness, they may attain the outcome, which is eternal life.

By His grace, God enables us to do good works for His glory and the good of our neighbors. The Westminster Confession of Faith 16.3 explains how He does this:

Their ability to do good works is not at all from themselves, but entirely from the Spirit of Christ. And—in order that they may be enabled to do these things—besides the graces believers have already received, there must also be an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit working in them both to will and to do God’s good pleasure. This truth, however, should not cause believers to become negligent, as though they were not bound to perform any duty without a special moving of the Spirit; rather, they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.

This includes the small things we do for the Lord. In a parable in Matthew 25, Jesus speaks of small but practical things: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

We may all wish to do great things: become missionaries, build a cancer wing in a hospital or dedicate our lives to improving impoverished nations. Some are called to do those things. But all of us can help someone we see in need. We can view people who cross our paths as gifts from God, to be cared for and encouraged. It turns out it is the little things that we do in Jesus’ name that count.

Lord in this season of Thanksgiving, let us remember to be grateful for all our blessings, big and small. And may we seek out ways daily to honor You by practicing kindnesses that just might make another person’s life a little sweeter.

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