BY: Sir Godfrey Gregg

Theme: Counting Blessings When the Table Is Crowded

As November 2026 unfolds and the season of thanksgiving approaches, I call your family to the holy discipline of gratitude. It is easy to be thankful when the harvest is abundant and the table is full, but the true test of a household is whether it can give thanks in the lean seasons as well. Gratitude is not a feeling that visits us when circumstances please us; it is a discipline that we choose, day by day, regardless of the weather. A grateful family is a resilient family, and a resilient family is a together family.

The Apostle Paul commanded the early believers to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. Note the preposition: in, not for. We are not asked to be grateful for the hardship, but we are called to be grateful in the midst of it. This distinction is everything. Every family faces its share of disappointment, loss, and difficulty. Yet the family that trains itself to look for the gifts hidden in the hard days will find them. The family that counts its blessings will discover that the blessings outnumber the burdens, and that the God who provides is faithful in every season.

I encourage you to make gratitude a visible, spoken practice in your home this month. At the dinner table, let each member name one thing for which they are thankful. Keep a gratitude jar and fill it with written notes of thanks, then read them aloud at month’s end. Write thank-you notes together to those who have blessed your family—teachers, pastors, neighbors, and friends. Let the children see that gratitude is not merely a holiday sentiment but a way of life. When we teach children to say thank you, we are teaching them to recognize the hands that have lifted them and the God who has provided for them.

Gratitude also guards the family against the poison of comparison. How much conflict arises because we look at what another family has and resent what we lack? How much joy is stolen by the endless measuring of our home against another’s? The grateful family does not measure itself against anyone; it measures itself against the goodness of God. It looks at what it has, not at what it does not. It rejoices in the success of others rather than begrudging it. This is the freedom that gratitude brings, and it is available to every household that chooses it.

Finally, let gratitude be expressed for one another. It is a sad thing when family members are thanked less often than strangers. Thank your spouse for the small kindnesses. Thank your children for their effort, not only their achievement. Thank your parents for their sacrifices, spoken while they can still hear it. Gratitude spoken aloud is a gift to both the giver and the receiver. This November, make your home a place where thanksgiving is heard daily, and you will find that the atmosphere of your household is transformed.