On "Thankfulness" This Thanksgiving Day

Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!

-- Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31 --

It's been a real joy this month to follow those making posts on Facebook each day about something for which they are thankful.  What a wonderful example they have set.  One thing I have noticed though throughout this month is that not much has been said about to WHOM we are being "thankful".  And while I think it is largely implicit in many such posts, I'd like to take this time to make it explicit!  After all, by definition, "thanks" is something given to another person in gratitude for something they have done or given to us.  Being "thankful" (filled with "thanks" or gratitude) is not something that we can be or think or feel simply within ourselves ... thanks and gratitude are given to another person or persons.  And while there are no doubt MANY sources of blessings and other people in our lives who are deserving our thanks and gratitude, I would like to point out that that is not what this day is about.

I was pleasantly surprised today to discover no less than 3 references to "God" or "Creator" in President Obama's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.  He spends far more time thanking our troops than our Creator, but in all, not bad. Considering the source and his history with these sort of things, I'd say really well done!  Thank you Mr. President!

While it is entirely appropriate to be thankful for all our men and women in uniform every day (and if you know me at all, you know I'm a huge fan of our armed forces!), yet again, with deepest respect, that is NOT what this day is about.

From the first thanksgiving(s) at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, to the founding of our national annual observance by President Lincoln in 1863, and throughout most of our nation's history, this day has been about recognizing that all we have, and indeed "all good things" (Jas 1:17) come from our Great Creator, Redeemer, and Lord - Jesus Christ as those first Puritans fully recognized.

We all have many, many things to be thankful for on this and every day of the year.  Blessings come to us in many forms and through many sources.  But this day was designed and intended to be focused on the One "from Whom all blessings flow" ... Jesus Christ.

President George Washington made the first official proclamation of a (single) "day of thanksgiving" in 1789 at the urging of the newly formed United States Congress (though it was not to become an official annual observance until 1861).  Washington's proclamation read as follows:

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH 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 in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable 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 favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
...

He goes on to implore each of us to repent of both personal and national sins and to continue to solicit God's  help in securing a good and sound government both here and for all nations and to promote "true religion". (See link below for full text)

When President Lincoln officially created "Thanksgiving Day" as an annual national observance in 1861, he wrote these words within the presidential proclamation:

"... No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union."

Although he did not write the following words specifically for Thanksgiving, President Lincoln summed up - perhaps better than any other author I've encountered - what I believe should be the true spirit that should drive all Americans to Thankfulness - ANY day, but especially this one.

On March 30, 1863 President Lincoln, in his Proclamation for a Day of Prayer and Fasting, called the nation to find spiritual strength through prayer with these words:

"Whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness... All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."

And so I pray that each of us will this day remember, not only those many blessings for which we are so thankful, but even more importantly, let us also explicitly direct our thanks and gratitude to Him from Whom each one of them has come - our gracious and loving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ: the Author and Mediator of all good things.

"Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people." 

-- 1Chron 16:8 --

- Tim -



General history of "Thanksgiving" in America:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/

President George Washington's first official proclamation of Thanksgiving by the U.S. Government:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/thankstext.html

Original sources regarding the event regarded as the "First Thanksgiving":
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/1stthnks.htm

President Lincoln's official founding proclamation of an annual, national day of Thanksgiving:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

President Obama's Thanksgiving Proclamation 2012:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/20/presidential-proclamation-thanksgiving-day-2012