The Giving of Thanks

Thanksgiving is a time as we all know that as a nation we come together and give thanks for what God has done in our lives. Not only that, it is a time for the gathering of families all across America to come together and be with each other to count their blessings together! I love Thanksgiving because of the fact that as a family we put all differences aside and come together to give thanks and praise to the only one that has allowed us to have what we have in our lives. Now do we actually dwell on what God has done for us and who He is during Thanksgiving? If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t give much if any thanks or praise besides a longer prayer before we carve into our freshly cooked turkeys. This makes me stop and wonder if Thanksgiving, to many of us, is just a time of family, food, fellowship and football. What has Thanksgiving become to me and to you? Don’t forget the shopping that is now starting on Thanksgiving instead of black Friday! Is Thanksgiving really a time that is the giving of thanks to God for what He has allowed for us this past year or is it a time focused on food, family or whatever. I’m not saying that all of these are bad, but we need to keep the giving of thanks to God a priority!

"To all ye Pilgrims:

In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience;

"Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony."
--William Bradford (1590-1657), Pilgrim father and second governor of Plymouth colony.

This was the first Thanksgiving in America! It was all because the pilgrims had a good harvest that year and they had kind of settled down in the “New World!” They wanted to take a day out of the year to thank God for all that He had done that year, giving them food, protection and friends or allies with the Indians! The year was 1621 and the first Thanksgiving lasted 3 days!

Read Psalm 95 and 100 this year, as it will help us to realize why we should give thanks and praise to God!