THIS YEAR'S BIBLE LESSON on "Thanksgiving" goes to the heart of what it means to be divinely blessed. Whether you're moved to whisper thanks, or shout and sing you praise, this message on the nature of God's giving will tune your voice. But it also will spur fresh thinking about what and how God supplies His creation.

The Lesson's opening Golden Text presents a familiar line from the 23rd Psalm in the New Living Translation's wording, which completes a thought strongly implied in the King James Version: "My cup overflows with blessings" (verse 5). As I studied the Lesson's six sections, I found a breadth and depth of benefaction that made me want to rephrase poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous Q&A to "How do I bless thee? Let me count the ways." Lift Browning's already lofty human "love" to the divine "bless," and the "ways" truly become uncountable.

In all of God's means or modes of supply, the substance of His giving is clearly spiriutal, not material. As lines in the Lesson's Responsive Reading point out, God "is good" and "filleth the hungry soul with goodness" (Ps. 107:1, 9). Effect mirrors the nature of its cause. Good bestows goodness—new ideas, unexpected insight, comfort, awakening, courage in trouble, a deeper understanding of Spirit and the solidity of our spiritual selfhood—rather than "the goods" we sometimes wish for.

In the account of Jesus feeding several thousand listeners (see Matt. 15, Section III, citation 11), wasn't the actual food God gave him to give to them the ideas, the "good news," that profoundly nourished heart and mind, that expanded their grasp of divine law? And what healing they must have experienced! The multiplied bread and fish were not insignificant—the miracle of a meal in the wilderness enabled people to go home focused on the immaterial wealth they'd gained, instead of occupied by hunger and fatigue. But the meal was the afterglow, a hint of the Infinite's capacity for good-giving.

Thanksgiving or harvest celebrations impel care for those who suffer hunger and depressed hopes, on city streets and along dustry rural roads. For the caregiver, Mary Baker Eddy's vision for a universal, practical Christianity presents both a challenge and a promise. She wrote, "It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good" (Science and Health, p. 494, Sect. III, cit. 12). This Lesson challenges me to seek the grace that actually saves as it feeds and shelters. Only the Mind of the Christ can solve a famine of ideas and opportunities.

Section I amplifies the Golden Text's image of an overflowing cup of blessing with the Psalmist's vow to "take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. 116:13, cit. 1). The Hebrew word for "cup" comes from a root meaning "to hold together," and "salvation" is the KJV's rendering of yeshuw'ah, which could be translated as deliverance, aid, victory, prosperity, but also as health and welfare. Follow this line of blessing to Section IV, and you'll find that God is "merciful unto us, and bless[es] us" with His "saving health (yeshuw'ah) among all nations [peoples]" (Ps. 67:1, 2, cit. 15).

The blessing of yeshuw'ah—earlier exemplified in the Hebrew leader Joshua (Yehowshuwa), and later in Jesus' name and his Christ-mission—also appears in Luke's account of the ten lepers who discover their original wholeness in the Saviour's presence (see Luke 17, Sect. IV, cit. 14). The People's New Testament Commentary points out that Jesus calls the ten "to act as though they had already been healed" (p. 247); to go to the priests as God-blessed, not as sinful outcasts in need of healing—and when they do, then they see that they're clean and well. "Action," Science and Health affirms, "expresses more gratitude than speech" (p. 3, Sect. II, cit. 10).

One of the ten returns to give thanks—to drink freely from the "cup of blessing" and grow spiritually from the healing he's experienced. Jesus' response ("Where are the nine?") goes beyond disappointment. Isn't he showing that the "loaves and fishes" of physical or social wellness, as right and normal as those benefits are, can't begin to measure up to someone's awakening to God's presence and power?

Divine blessing have a way of multiplying and spreading the benefit. "When, on the strength of these instructions [in Science and Health], you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that you understand this teaching, and therefore you receive the blessing of Truth" (p. 488, Sect. IV, cit. 17).

The beneficence of God's grace and peace closes this Lesson, but leaves wide open the door to everyday thanksgiving. May this grace be yours today. CSS