One might ask themselves how our nation could get to this point?! What happened to a day of Thanks GIVING? How can whole families forget to have thanksgiving and instead rush to the stores to get the newest greatest deal? How could we get to this point in America? Well, there are several reasons why we are at this point but the main one is that Thanks GIVING is a time to GIVE thanks but that begs the questions to Who or is it Whom? (I have never been very good at English.) Think about it . . . if you don't have God in your life in a real and personal way, you might feel kind of silly sitting at the dinner table telling the table thank you for all the food. You might thank the person who prepared the food but more often that not that is the wait staff at Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel and mom just comes home and opens it up! (We just don't know how to cook anymore! But that's another topic for another day!) We live in a nation where complaining abounds and thankfulness is very little. It would behoove us to remember when Thanksgiving Day was instituted. After the Pilgrims had come and nearly died because they tried a community garden and everyone working and everyone taking the same amount. Some worked more than others and some none at all, but all received the same from the storehouse. Pretty soon, the ones who were hard workers felt discouraged from carrying the load for those who weren't working and the store house didn't have quite as much in it. Yes the Wampanoag Indians came along and taught them how to better plant and better hunt but it was the leader of the compound who said that each family would get their own garden and be responsible for their own food. When that happened those who were hard workers again felt like their work wasn't in vain. Those who were not hard workers realized that they were going to starve unless they worked. That year they flourished. They were so grateful for God's provision that the Pilgrims decided to have a Feast and offer Thanksgiving to GOD! (The first "welfare" system in America failed miserably. Why do we think on a larger scale with a much more corrupt government it is going to work today? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for helping the poor, but not enabling the lazy. Again I digress, another topic for another day!) So these Pilgrims hold this feast for three days. After that in the New England States, several families had a time of thanksgiving but as our nation grew it started to fall away. The Southern states didn't remember the day and Thanksgiving was in danger of becoming a distant memory. A lady by the name of Sarah Hale recognized this and said, This can't be. She started petitioning congress and the sitting president to have a national day of thanksgiving. Several states got on board and had this holiday but Sarah Hale realized to make this permanent, a day where we give thanks to GOD, we needed to have it be a national holiday. She petitioned president after president and not just one time, thousands of letters, many visits and all to no avail. She worked for 38 years trying to get a national day of Thanksgiving and time after time, president after president, they all said no. Then something tragic happened. War broke out. We were not fighting an enemy across the sea, we weren't fighting for our freedom, or to expand our nation, we were fighting each other. Brother against brother, father against son, family against family. Civil War raged on. Sarah Hale decided in 1863 to try one last time to petition for a National Day of Thanksgiving. She wrote a christian man by the name of Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of this terrible war President Lincoln read her letter. I think if I was president I would say "I couldn't be bothered by some little woman and her silly ideas, I have a war to win", but President Lincoln didn't think that, he didn't say that. No He said that in such a time as this Thankfulness was exactly what we needed. WHAT?! At the lowest point in our nation's history President Lincoln said we need to take time and Thank God for what He has provided. I believe that when that happened God looked down and decided that was the turning point of the war. I can't prove that but I just bet it is true!
The Bible tells us that in the last days there is going to be a lot of wicked and horrible things. He actually gives a whole list and right smack in the middle of that list in II Timothy 3 He says in verse 2 that people were going to be disobedient to parents, and unthankful! I used to work in a day care about 5 years ago and I can tell you that is true, but now disobedience to parents ABOUNDS in our christian circles. People, get your children under control and teach them to be thankful!!!! To teach our children to be thankful we must be thankful. Stop complaining and start thanking God. I hear people say something they are thankful for and they qualify it with a complaint!!! THAT. DOES. NOT. BRING. GLORY. TO. GOD!!!!! I don't even think it makes him happy. I don't even think he sees what you are thankful for! Basically you wasted your time and breath being thankful and then qualifying it, and I bet you didn't feel all that much better afterwards either! I know when I am truly thankful and things are going bad it can totally change my attitude making the situation so much better! We need to offer thanksgiving to God. The bible has a LOT to say about being thankful, thanking, and thanksgiving. In Colossians 2:7 is says, "Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Chapter 3 and verse 15 of the same book says, "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." And 4:2 says to "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;" Let's look at each of these verses.
Colossians 2:7 says, "Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Abounding in thanksgiving . . . do you abound with thankfulness? Do you thank God for the good and the bad realizing He has a plan for your life and it is always good? I don't know what abounding means here. I don't' know if it means 2 times a day or 2 times a minute you are thanking God and being thankful, but think about it . . . which is more prevalent in your speech? Thankfulness or complaining? Which abounds? If it is complaining do you realize that for every negative comment it takes 9 to 17 positive comments to overcome it!!!! WOW! Maybe that's what abounding means. In the Psalms it says that my mouth is filled with His praise. When your mouth is filled with something good like praising God you are not going to have room in there for complaints and such! We need to be thankful people and not complaining people. This is a CHOICE. It is something we have to daily and even minute by minute be thinking of.
"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." ~ Colossians 3:15. WOW! This verse makes me stop and really examine myself. As a woman I am so filled with needless worry and that often leads to complaining out of fear of the unknown but God says to let, did you catch that LET, you have to allow the peace of God to rule your heart! Hmmmm. I bet if we do that we would be happier, more thankful people! We are commanded at the end of this verse to be thankful! YOU, be thankful. We don't need a calling, when it is a command. A command is also not based on our circumstances. It is based upon God's word . . . so yes, that means when bad things happen, when co-workers are jerks, when our children drive us crazy, when our husbands don't listen, when we feel slighted or wronged we are to thank God! Every day, every moment! Thanking God! Because we are commanded to! SOmetimes it is hard to do what we know is right to do, but just like exercise and eating right, the longer we do it, the easier it becomes!
Colossians 4:2 says to "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;" I love that this verse doesn't say to qualify our prayers and it also suggests that even before the prayer is answered we are thanking God! Praying in faith and thanking God in advance for 1. Bringing this into our life and 2. How He is going to work it for our good and His glory!
I heard Jack Trieber says today that 22,000 children die EVERY DAY because of starvation and yet we complain about the food we have abounding in our life. I'll tell you this, if we don't point people to Christ and teach them to be thankful then we are going to lose what God is providing. We need to be thanking God every day and abounding in that thanksgiving! Let's learn from our history . . . don't forget to give God thanks and result in Civil War. We need to remember to give thanks and WHO or Whom to give thanks to and that is God! Also don't get sidetracked by the fact that we are forgetting thanksgiving for Black Friday Shopping. Point people to Christ and actively seek to win souls to Christ. IF we teach them the Bible, they will learn the importance of being thankful and a lot of things that are wrong in our nation will be made right!
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