This, my friends, is my favorite time of the year! Oh, because we are entering the Christmas season, Pastor Barry? Well, yes, but not just for that reason, also because Thanksgiving begins! Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this is easily my favorite time of the year. It is not just due in part to the feasting and gathering with family and friends, but because it is a time to rest after a busy fall season of serving Him where we can stop and give Him thanks for all He has done and continues to do.
Many colonial figures set aside a day every year to give thanks to God for providence and blessings. However, Thanksgiving Day was officially established as a national holiday to be celebrated yearly on the last Thursday of November by President Abraham Lincoln in the mid to late 1800s. Then in 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the holiday be changed to celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November, seeing as there were calendrical issues with the number of Thursdays in November that year.
Today it seems Thanksgiving Day is the gateway to the Christmas shopping season instead of being the day it was founded to be. Many people skip by Thanksgiving screaming it infringes upon religious freedom and affiliation to other religions, which our Constitution does allow. But, let us be honest, our nation was founded on biblical principles. It seems as though the world, and its commercialism, has attempted to thwart the Thanksgiving holiday by opening on Thanksgiving night. Now some are opening Thanksgiving morning to be in operation for the entire day, taking people away from their families. Yes, I know some things change with time; however, the message never changes.
Give thanks unto God for His many blessings!
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV).