Thanksgiving

After George Washington authorized the first Thanksgiving Day in 1789, 74 years passed without another day of thanks. Then, Abraham Lincoln established the holiday as an annual event in America. His Thanksgiving Proclamation is worth reading again today.

Be informed and inspired.

Putting politics aside, as Lincoln most often did, he spoke from his heart:

Civil War artist Alfred R. Waud sketched this Thanksgiving scene at a Civil War camp. Library of Congress image.

 

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to owe 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 Scripture and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.

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 has seemed to me fit and proper that God 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 at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. 

President Lincoln not only authorized our annual Thanksgiving Day in 1863 - in the midst of the Civil War, he gave the country a picture of what Thanksgiving should look like.

In the darkest times, the Light of God's Truth and His love for each of us shines more brightly.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Praise God the Father who’s the source;

Praise God the Son who is the course;

Praise God the Spirit who’s the flow;

Praise God, our portion here below!

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Happy Thanksgiving.

Be Thankful. Be Grateful. Be Blessed.