Thursday, November 27, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving



Happy Thanksgiving!  Today is a holiday with the traditional turkey and all the fixings.  Families getting together, scrimmage football games in the yard, parades on tv, everyone talking and laughing and telling old stories and taking long naps.  Yes, that’s the ‘ideal’ Thanksgiving day.  There are far too many people that do without.  Too many people alone and hungry.  For these, that’s the reality of Thanksgiving Day.  (What Christians are called to do is a post in itself.)

So, what is Happy Thanksgiving all about?

Take ‘Happy’ first.  Happy: cheerful, glad, satisfied, delighted, thrilled, content, tickled, pleased... Add: joyful and blessed. (True joy is a post in itself.)  I’ll focus on blessed.  Take a look at the Beatitudes in *Matthew 5:1-12.  Jesus tells us what it means to be blessed.  He gives us a list, and some are those who grieve, those who are humble, those who are hungry, those who are compassionate, those who are peacemakers, those who are wronged...  I don’t have to be ecstatic, and I don’t have to be miserable, to be blessed. 

Now for ‘Thanksgiving’.  Thanksgiving: gratitude, praise, gratefulness, appreciation, admiration... Add: worship and praise. In the Psalms, worship and thanksgiving and praise in both song prayer is repeated many times over.  One well known verse is Psalms 100:4 (NLT) 'Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name.'  Another favorite is 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NLT) 'Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.'

As for me, Thanksgiving is being blessed by God and worshiping Him with thanksgiving and with praise.  Every single day of the year.

*https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A1-12&version=NLT

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