Weekly Devotional
What Happened to THANKSGIVING?
I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30
Have you ever wondered what happened to thanksgiving? No, not the holiday, we will get to that in a minute, but thanksgiving in general? Where did all the thankful people go? Perhaps they didn’t really disappear, but it sure seems like it sometimes. Thankfulness is something that we could all practice more of.
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In scripture, thankfulness is mentioned over and over. The Law repeatedly tells the Israelites to bring offerings of thanksgiving. David appointed singers to proclaim songs of thanksgiving and he writes Psalms filled with thankful praise. In the Book of Nehemiah, the Israelites were to “celebrate joyfully…with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres,” when they rededicated the wall in Jerusalem (12:27). We are told to “enter His gates with thanksgiving” (Psalm 100:4) and “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,” present our prayers to God (Philippians 4:6). There is thanksgiving for provision, for rescue from the enemy, for harvest, for rain, for everything! There is thanksgiving for salvation, first seen at Passover as the blood of the lamb let the angel of death pass over, then on the cross as the blood of the Lamb, took our place. So why do people today seem less thankful than ever. Perhaps it is because we forget God’s blessings.
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So that is why we have a national holiday of thanksgiving. It is so we will remember that thanksgiving is still important. It has been important since the beginning of time and certainly since the earliest colonies were settled by the pilgrims and puritans. On countless occasions thereafter, we see gatherings of public thanksgiving. It is not just something we do quietly, it is something to be done publicly as a statement and a profession of the goodness of God. On October 3, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the first formal Thanksgiving Day:
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“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions…”
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Sure Thanksgiving is a national holiday, but it is so much more. It’s not a day set aside for food and football (although food is definitely a bonus), it is a day to remember the goodness of God. To remember His gifts and provisions, His compassion and His gift of salvation. It is also a day to repent and turn to Him more faithfully than ever. So let us infuse our Thanksgiving with thankfulness and be a people that remembers that we should live every day with a thankful heart.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Jen Brown
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