Every year around Thanksgiving, a certain 1978 television moment gets replayed across the internet: the classic WKRP in Cincinnati episode known simply as “Turkeys Away.” You can view the funniest six minutes of the episode on YouTube here. Station manager Arthur Carlson, in an attempt to pull off the ultimate holiday promotion, hires a helicopter and drops live turkeys over a shopping-center parking lot, believing they will “fly down gently” to delighted shoppers. The result? Catastrophe. The turkeys plummet like sacks of wet cement. Cars are dented, shoppers scatter, and newsman Les Nessman (in one of the greatest live reports in sitcom history) begins describing the scene like the Hindenburg disaster: “Oh, the humanity!” Mr. Carlson staggers back into the studio, tie askew, utterly defeated, and utters the immortal line: “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” Good Intentions and Reality It’s hilarious—until you realize something profoundly human is happening. A well-meaning man tried to give people something wonderful. He failed spectacularly, publicly, and embarrassingly. And in that moment of humiliation, he discovers that his good intentions didn’t make the turkeys fly. Thanksgiving can feel a little like that sometimes, can’t it? We want to offer perfect gratitude. We want our hearts to soar in praise. We plan the perfect meal, the perfect prayer, the perfect expression of thanks…and then the turkey burns, the kids fight, the loneliness creeps in, or we realize we’re still carrying bitterness from last year. We plummet. And we think, “As God as my witness, I thought gratitude would come more naturally than this.” The Gospel Twist But here’s the gospel twist: God never asked the turkeys to fly. He asked us to give thanks—not because we’re good at it, not because our lives are flawless, not because we can soar on our own—but simply because He is good. Paul puts it plainly in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Notice Paul didn’t say “Give thanks for all circumstances” (some things are genuinely terrible). He said “in” all circumstances—when the turkeys fly and when they most decidedly do not. This Thanksgiving, let’s laugh together at our plummeting turkeys—our failed attempts at perfection—and then look up. The God who catches us doesn’t require us to fly on our own. He has already given the greatest gift in Jesus, and because of that, even our wobbly, earthbound gratitude is enough. So eat the slightly dry bird, hug the awkward relatives, say the clumsy prayer, and give thanks anyway. Because, as God as our witness, He loves turkeys who can’t fly—and He loves us too. I love you, Florida Conference! Happy Thanksgiving! All God’s love, Jay | 
