WHEN GRATITUDE FINDS ITS TRUE HOME

There’s a certain silence that settles over mid–northern Missouri once the combines shut down for the season. It isn’t dramatic. It’s not something you’d point out if you weren’t used to the rhythm of farm life. But after months of noise, sweat, and long days, the world finally exhales. The dust hangs low, the bins are full—or sometimes not—and families start thinking about gathering.

People drove miles for that day. Mile after mile of gravel roads, headlights bouncing across washboard sections, food wrapped in towels to keep warm.

There was nothing glamorous about it. Just boots outside the door, cold air rushing in with every arrival, and a house that felt too small for the number of people breathing inside it.

We didn’t have icons on the walls. No family saint to honor. No candles burning to someone long gone. We didn’t reverence angels or imagine holy figures hovering somewhere near the ceiling. Those ideas weren’t part of our world. Scripture had shaped us quietly, simply. And because of that, there was a sense—a steady, unspoken certainty—that the unseen presence in that home wasn’t a saint or an angel or a symbol.

It was God. Just Him. And that was enough.

Nobody announced it. Nobody set a place for Him. But when we sat around that old wooden table and someone began sharing what they were thankful for, there was a warmth in the room that had nothing to do with the stove. Gratitude would spread through the conversation like a quick spark racing through dry wheat—bright, fast, and alive. It wasn’t emotional hype. It was recognition. We knew Who deserved the thanks.

Years later, in Serbia, I felt something familiar—but shaped differently. Families gathering. Food prepared with care. Stories told and retold. There was the same desire to honor, to remember, to acknowledge. That longing is universal. Humans everywhere reach for something beyond themselves, especially when life has been hard and history has been heavier than any one generation can carry.

But the more time I spent here, the more I noticed something I couldn’t ignore. In many homes, thanksgiving doesn’t rise upward—it drifts sideways. Toward a family saint. Toward an icon. Toward a mediator who never claimed the role people assign to him. Toward someone who once lived a faithful life but who, according to Scripture itself, is not the One who hears prayer, receives gratitude, or guards the soul.

That difference matters. More than people realize.

In the Bible, every time someone tried to give honor to a created being, heaven corrected them immediately. John fell before an angel, and the angel stopped him. Cornelius bowed before Peter, and Peter pulled him off the ground. In Lystra, when people tried to offer worship to Paul and Barnabas, the apostles tore their clothes in grief. Revelation shows angels refusing worship outright.

The message is consistent from Genesis to Revelation:

Created beings—however faithful—are never to receive thanks, reverence, or spiritual honor. God alone deserves it.

This isn’t harsh. It’s protective. God knows how quickly the human heart shifts from remembering Him to exalting what we can see, hold, or inherit. Slava traditions, as cultural gatherings, may carry beautiful memories. But when they become moments of spiritual gratitude toward a saint, they step across a biblical line. And Scripture doesn’t blur that line. It draws it boldly.

Meanwhile, back in Missouri, nobody had to explain that to us. We couldn’t have quoted a dozen verses to prove it. We were farmers. We weren’t theologians. But when we gathered, our gratitude stopped at the throne of God—not because we were wise, but because the Spirit had taught us something simple: the One who kept us alive through storms, droughts, debts, and long seasons didn’t live in a painting or a story. He lived.

That truth doesn’t change with geography.

Belgrade isn’t exempt.

Leskovac isn’t exempt.

A Missouri farmhouse wasn’t special.

God is simply God.

And when gratitude flows toward anyone else, even with good intention, even out of tradition, something shifts in the soul. The focus goes blurry. The thanks gets misplaced. The honor drifts. And the heart begins looking sideways instead of upward.

But when gratitude returns to the One who made you, sees you, sustains you, forgives you, and walks with you—clarity comes back. Peace comes back. Worship comes back. The soul straightens itself. The room feels different. The spirit inside you breathes easier. Something aligns.

Here’s the truth I’ve come to say—not as a preacher with a sermon, but as a man who’s seen both worlds and lived long enough to recognize the difference:

Saints can inspire you, but they cannot protect you.

They can encourage you, but they cannot mediate for you.

They can be remembered, but they cannot be thanked for your life.

Gratitude belongs to God alone.

And when you give it to Him alone, everything else finds its place.

So this Thanksgiving—whether you’re in Missouri, Serbia, or anywhere else—make your own tradition. Not one tied to icons or inherited customs that confuse affection with worship, but one where everything else goes dim for a moment and God becomes the only One you see. Let the world quiet down. Let the weight of tradition loosen its fingers. Let the saints fade from the edges of your mind.

And look directly at Him.

Not at someone who cannot hear you.

Not at someone who refuses worship.

Not at a story that brings comfort but cannot save.

Look at the God who has been with you through every storm, every loss, every year that didn’t go the way you hoped.

Take a moment—right now—and thank Him.

You don’t need the perfect year to do it.

You don’t need a perfect table, a perfect family, or a perfect feeling.

You only need a moment of honesty.

Because wherever you find yourself today—full or empty, strong or tired, surrounded or alone

—you can still find something to thank God for. And when you do, gratitude will rise in your heart like it did in those Missouri kitchens, like it can in Serbian homes, like it does in every place where people lift their eyes to the One who actually hears them.

Make that your tradition.

Make Him your focus.

And let your thanks rise to the only place it belongs.