If you’re like me on Thanksgiving, your appetite swells. It’s Thanksgiving.

But opening our mouths for food is not to upstage opening our mouths in expressed thanks. While all the savories go in a plenty, something must come out even more. In fact, God says that it must do so continually, to overflowing, like a valve that won’t shut off.

God makes overflowing a deeply spiritual word. In Colossians 2:6 and 7, He attaches it to the word thankfulness. That means that once we open the valve of thankfulness, it’s never to be shut off.

It is to flow like a river that always finds occasion to exceed its banks, like an orchard that produces fruit in superabundance, like a team that has continual sellouts for decades, like fans who will not be silenced. The thanksgiving valve is meant to stay open, causing continual overflow.

Here are five things that open the thankfulness valve:

• CONSIDERING the great things God has done for me (1 Samuel 12:24 and Psalm 103:1,2).

This ”benefits package” must include: His Word, the gift of others He has placed in our lives, some amazing circumstances where He has shown up, His indwelling Spirit in us, and a place where we can find endless mercy and grace, and unconditional love.

• SINGING God’s praises (Psalm 69:30). Music unlocks souls and opens the praise valve so well.
• DECLARING God’s deliverances (Psalm 30:11,12, Psalm 107:2, Isaiah 12:4). Let the wins be marked!
• REMOVING the limits, the boundaries I set for where and when thanks gets expressed (Psalm 34:1-3).
• IDENTIFYING with Christ (Colossians 2:6). When I roll with Christ, His thankful life has a profound way of rubbing off on me.

Reflect: How open is your thanksgiving valve? How open will it remain?

A prayer to consider: Lord, don’t let my thanksgiving be seasonal and sporadic. Don’t let me stuff my stomach and not open the valve of my thanks. Let it be continual, to the point of overflowing. O, may my gazing on Christ keep it that way. Amen.