By Ro Lashua
November is the month that we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States of America. In the public and private schools of our country the children all learn about the “First Thanksgiving” when the pilgrims celebrated the bountiful fall harvest.
“The first official Thanksgiving Proclamation made in America was issued by the Continental Congress in 1777. Six national Proclamations of Thanksgiving were issued in the first thirty years after the founding of the United States of America as an independent federation of States”. However, it was not declared a Federal holiday until President Lincoln declared it to be a “prayerful day of thanksgiving” on the last Thursday of November (Wikipedia, 2007).
The history of Thanksgiving can be related to the fact that many nations have a ceremonial gathering of thanks in the fall or autumn season. Many people across the globe do understand thankfulness.
While we in America focus on the Thanksgiving dinner and all the events of parades and football games of the day, do we remember the real meaning or intent of this holiday? Is our focus and importance placed on the menu of the day or the football games of the day?
Is it wrong to watch football on Thanksgiving Day? Is it wrong to have a big Thanksgiving Dinner? The answer to that lies in what we add to the day above and beyond these physical things.
Thankfulness is defined as: a feeling or expressing gratitude or to be appreciative; (www.dictionary.com, 2007). If a person has gratitude they are grateful. They are warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits that have been received.
The next obvious question would be: to whom should we give thanks? If we thank someone it is usually the one who has provided the kindness or benefits. That is probably the crux of the problem. Could it be that too many people do not know whom to give thanks to? Could it be that people feel that they have acquired all that they see and that it was not given to them by anyone else?
In Luke 17 we read about the healing of the 10 lepers. Of the 10 only one came back to thank Jesus. That is only 10% of the people who were thankful. And this was for a healing. If we can be thankful for anything it should be a healing of something as major as lepersey. It is also interesting in this passage that it was a “foreigner” who gave Jesus thanks.
Luke 17:15- 19
15And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. 17So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well” (KJV).
An interesting point we see here is also that Jesus told him to go his way that his faith had made him well. We don’t know if the other nine had retained their healing, perhaps not from the sound of this verse. That is another study for another time.
An interesting point in this section of Scripture is that when the man returned to thank Jesus, that was an exercise of faith. Jesus told him, his faith had made him well.
Our faith is linked to our thankfulness. We can pray for more faith but we also need to exercise it. An exercise of faith is to be thankful.
So, this thanksgiving let’s exercise our faith by being thankful. I have a few suggestions for this thanksgiving. Perhaps we can start this as a tradition in our families to be passed down to future generations.
Suggestions for showing thankfulness:
Talk about the meaning of the holiday with the family before it arrives. Even if we do not have children in our homes we can do this. We can speak about the meaning of Thanksgiving to us.
Before the holiday arrives, purchase or make some Thanksgiving cards to send to family and friends. The card companies do make Thanksgiving cards. If we use them they will keep doing this. Be sure to include comments in our cards about how thankful we are for life, health (no matter the state), jobs, and the joy of knowing Jesus as our savior.
The evening before, or the morning of, make a list of things we are thankful for. If we have sent the cards this will be easy to do.
At the Thanksgiving Day meal be sure to give a Thanksgiving Prayer. Think about who in your family could and would do this. The person should be someone who knows how awesome God is and be a person of faith. Then the prayer will just flow out of their heart.
Decorations for Thanksgiving should be more about the harvest / our blessings and not about Pilgrims. We can recognize their faithfulness but we should give greater recognition to God and what HE has done for us.
If we begin to institute these into our family celebration we can make an impact for future generations. What we do, does affect others for generations.
Another thing to remember is that we should be thankful always, not just on one day of the year. Our suggestions for Thanksgiving this year could and perhaps should become part of our family traditions if not daily at least weekly or monthly.
Let’s always remember to give thanks. It should be a habit we have developed in our family and in our personal lives.
Faithful and faith filled Christians are thankful people.
I Corinthians 15:57-58 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (KJV).
We are encouraged by Scripture to always give thanks. The Scripture does not say that is done only when we think things are going well. It is a sacrifice of praise and sacrifice of thanksgiving if we can give thanks when it does look so good or perhaps just like we would like it, in the physical. Faith is when we believe we will receive what we have not yet seen. If we have that kind of faith we can be thankful always for all things. We can even see setbacks as milestones on the way to victory and on the way to the goal. It is all about having a faith perspective. From that, comes thankfulness.
Ephesians 5:18b-20 …but be filled with the Spirit, 19speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, (KJV)
If we speak word of thankfulness, then the we will stir up the Spirit within us, and we will experience greater faith and more of the real joy of salvation.
copyright © 2007 Ro Lashua. All rights reserved.