Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. Although there certainly have been days of Thanksgiving proclaimed from Biblical times, the modern manifestation is something directly tied to God’s providence in establishing Christian colonies in North America, preserving them through trial, and building them up into a mighty nation.
Just a few quick facts I wanted to share with you regarding Thanksgiving:
- Days of Thanksgiving and Prayer in the early colonies were more somber occasions, often accompanied by fasting
- The first day of Thanksgiving in America was actually officially designated by the Berkeley Plantation near Jamestown, Virginia in 1619
- The Pilgrims’ feast was more of a harvest festival than a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, though they undoubtedly offered thanks to God
- The first national day of Thanksgiving and Prayer was designated by the Continental Congress in 1777
- The first national proclamation of Thanksgiving and Prayer was issued by President George Washington in 1789
President George Washington declared in our nation’s first Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
“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…”
God has undoubtedly been good to guide, preserve, and protect the people of these United States (as well as untold millions throughout the world).
But as we enter into the holiday weekend of family, feasting, and fun, I wanted to challenge you to really think about what to be thankful for and why.
Think hard.
When most people give thanks this weekend around the table, they undoubtedly will mention family and health. But many will also mention some forms of luxury/ease and wealth in the list of ‘things’ they’re thankful for.
As America and the global economy is in the early stages of a prolonged depression, I think it’s important to identify the things that have gotten us into this predicament, and take the opportunity to disassociate ourselves from the vices that are causes but often wrongly seen as blessings.
The extreme levels of debt and spending beyond our means for generations is bearing its fruit. The rampant consumerism that has led to the high standards of living in the west has a price – the reduction of life to materialism and the things we enjoy, rather than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is not found in things.
Beyond reorienting our thankfulness to the fundamental things which God provides with liberality – namely, water, food, and shelter – we need to rethink what we are putting our time and energy into.
Are you spending hours each day on objects of entertainment? Or are you investing your time in people and building productivity in your household that can benefit generations to come?
What are you doing with your time and resources? Spending for near term enjoyment? Or investing for the future?
If you are walking wisely and practicing frugality, productivity, and charity, then great! I am truly thankful for that.
But if you’re not, and have instead adopted the ways of our modern age towards consumerist pleasure in its various forms, I’d like to challenge you:
Take the time to do an introspective evaluation of your life.
Of how you’re spending your time and resources.
Then what?
Make a decision. A decision to change how you spend your time. Your resources. Your energy.
Don’t spend them in a wasteful way, but seek to build productive ventures for the future.
It doesn’t have to have a widespread impact. Go local. Start with you and your family.
Plant a garden.
Save and invest more.
Start a small business.
Build relationship with your neighbors.
Spend more time reading to your children – stories of times gone by where people did these things.
And be thankful that God has opened your eyes to a counter-cultural way of thinking.
To the extent that He has enabled you to start these kind of changes, be thankful.
If you’re just starting this effort now, be thankful that you’re starting the journey and not procrastinating another day.
Take the time with family that the Thanksgiving holiday affords to ask hard questions like these, and challenge them to seek a wiser path to the future.
Cast a vision.
And be thankful.
As I think about the tremendous hardships suffered by the Pilgrims at the Plymouth colony the first year, as well as by the other early colonists, I am humbled by their courage and fortitude, their sacrifice and vision, to plant the seeds that would become the American republic that we benefit from today.
William Bradford, the 2nd Governor of the Plymouth Colony and its leader for 30 years, wrote in his History of Plymouth Plantation:
“Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.”
As we walk a path toward what appears to be hard times in the future, I take inspiration and courage from their example, and find determination to work hard to build a better and hopeful future than the one that currently lays before us.
I trust that you are likewise thankful and hopeful on this Thanksgiving holiday.
We are thankful for your support of this project and wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving.
“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
(Psalm 50:14-15)