In these last days, giving thanks to God in the midst of difficult events that happen to us is only possible if we have the right perspective. What do we deserve? What does God guarantee us? Is happiness an eternal right? The answers to these questions help us focus on the right perspective.
If we deserve nothing, due to the sinful condition of our nature, then anything we do have should bring gratitude. If we believe God gaurantees a life of happiness, then it's easy to be angry with God when good happenings as we might define it doesn't happen.
God is Love. If we understand God grants the assurance that He has allowed what ever happens in order to build our character, then our perspective changes. In fact, the first thing we should recognize is that we don't have a life without God. Science proves you cannot have something from nothing. Life itself needs a creator.
Giving thanks is the first response we owe our Creator. We ought to be thankful for each breath, for we have no guarantee of tomorrow. We ought to be thankful for every meal and the simple joys of life.
Thanksgiving in America
Post Covid-19 people were so thankful to get back together in person. People realized that the human race needs face to face. Only a few short years later and we're back to the hussle of shopping and decorating for Christmas. Our holy day of thanksgiving is again only the speed-bump in the way of the full throttle anticipation of the Christmas. Where worship that which is material and temporal, and we surrender ourselves to the pressure of false expectations and fleeting moments.
Retail Merchants today often ignore Thanksgiving in order to prepare, not for honoring Christ's birth at Christmas, but rather to gain more time for selling material goods. The demand for gifts at Christmas has almost obliterated the source of our blessings. Our nation is in need of a Holy Thanksgiving.
The Feast of Tabernacles, the Biblical holiday of Thanksgiving
If it is God's will that we give Him thanks for even the most mundane of blessings so that we do not take Him for granted, and we maintain the best perspective that will not only help us but others, then does the Bible give us an example of actually celebrating a time of Thanksgiving as a holy day (or holiday during the year)?
"Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'the fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the Lord'" - Leviticus 23:34
The Feast of Tabernacles was also called the feast of booths, for during the feast the Israelites were to make temporary shelters during the week long celebration, being reminded of what it was like to live for forty years in the wilderness.
This feast was also known as the feast of ingathering, for it occurred after crops had been harvested. It was a feast of thanksgiving and joy, celebrating God's goodness during the forty year wilderness journey, and the present goodness of the Lord in providing all we need now.
The time of this feast was late September through the middle of October, or the time of harvest.
No work could be done on these days, and this soon became the most prominent of all Jewish holidays. It was sometimes referred to simply as "the holiday."
Three times a year all males were to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to appear before the Lord in the temple, an Aliyah. These three times were Passover (late March to mid-April), Pentecost (fifty days later, or usually in May), and Tabernacles (in the fall, or September-October). Thus, each of these three were at times called "pilgrim feasts."
See Howard, Kevin and Rosenthal, Marvin, in The Feasts of the Lord, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997, pages 135-148.
The Feast of Tabernacles, as a Model for our First Thanksgiving?
England inherited a rich, Christian heritage that included its Jewish roots. The origin of the harvest festival in England by the time the Pilgrims decided to leave was rooted in the Biblical practice of the Feast of Tabernacles. However, during the Reformation period believers celebrated three types of thanksgivings.
The first was a day of prayer (often coupled with fasting) and humiliation before God. This was a time to search one's soul and repent of all known and unknown sins after a drought, tragedy or some other moral or physical calamity.
The second was a day of thanksgiving for answered prayer offered during days of humiliation and fasting. This was usually called after the calamity passed, or the rains came.
The third was a harvest thanksgiving. Though some historians call this a "secular" holiday due to its distinction from the first two, nothing was secular to either a Pilgrim or a Puritan. This day was not a prayer (humiliation) day or an answer to prayer (thanksgiving) day, but a day to thank God with joy for His provision in the midst of difficulty.
Scott, Otto, James I: the Fool as King, Ross House Books, 1976, pages 279-280.
See the web site www.pilgrimhall.org and the article by Jim Baker on the Origin of Thanksgiving.
John Smith was exploring Indian settlements in 1607, and around the close of the year was rescued by Pocahontas.
The Popham Colony had been established in what is now Maine, and Fort St. George was being completed. The ship Virginia, first to be built by the English in the new world, would soon successfully sail to and from England for many years.
It was Bradford that recalled the time of attempted escape, betrayal and difficulty for the Pilgrims. Always willing to look at the silver lining of God's faithfulness in the midst of turmoil, he wrote these words:
"I may not omit the fruit that came hereby, for by these so public troubles, in so many eminent places, their cause became famous, and occasioned many to look into the same; and their godly carriage and Christian behavior was such, as left a deep impression in the minds of many. And though some few shrunk at these first conflicts, and sharp beginnings (as it was no marvel), yet many more came on with fresh courage, and greatly animated others."
Would you or I be so grateful in the midst of being betrayed, put in jail, and separated from our spouses and children?
But that's not all. The Pilgrims thanked God the next year, in 1608, when they attempted to flee England again. The men had to watch their wives and children taken by the authorities while they watched from the boat. The captain, fearing for his life, sailed for Holland, experiencing a terrible storm for 14 days.
Jehle, Paul, Kingdom Seeds at America's Birth: 1607-2007; Letter from Plymouth Rock, Vol. 30, Issue 1; Jan-Feb, 2007. 5Ibid.
6Bradford, William, Of Plimoth Plantation, edited by Caleb Johnson, 2006, page 46.
What was the attitude of the Pilgrims in their continued attempt to flee England and reach Holland?
"But these things did not dismay them (though they did sometimes trouble them) for their desires were set on the ways of God, and to enjoy His ordinances, but they rested on His providence, and knew whom they had believed."
Their philosophy was simple and Biblical. Nothing happened to them that God did not allow, even tragedy. An attitude of gratitude, knowing they deserved nothing, kept them faithful to discern God's providential care in the midst of negative circumstances and difficult and sorrowful times.
Through the trials of getting an agreement to settle in the new world, the loss of the Speedwell, the difficult voyage, and the first winter where half their company died, the Pilgrims kept their Biblical view of giving thanks. They gave God thanks because He was good, not because everything that happened to them was good.
"What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not, and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say, 'Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, etc. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good; and His mercies endure forever."
The act of celebrating during a harvest festival was brought by the Pilgrims from England. The idea of thanking God for what He had provided, in the fall, and in the midst of hardship and difficulties, marked the Pilgrim idea of giving thanks as unique.
This, coupled with the need to publicly repent when calamity was allowed by God, and then thank Him when He answered those prayers, are all a part of the fabric of American society and culture. Indeed, we have much to be grateful for in America!
The first national thanksgiving, however, was called in the year 1777 by the Continental Congress to thank to God for victory at the battle of Saratoga. Written by Sam Adams, it stated in part:
"Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received...together with penitent confession of their sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor; and their humble and earnest supplications that it may please God through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance..it is therefore recommended...to set apart Thursday the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise, that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feeling of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their Divine Benefactor... acknowledging with gratitude their obligations to Him for benefits received... to prosper the means of religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth 'in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
The Continental Congress issued annual Thanksgiving Proclamations each year through 1784 when the war was finally over. In the first session of the Congress under the new Constitution, a resolution was given to President George Washington on September 25, 1789, indicating the will of Congress:
"to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God...."
George Washington not only agreed, but made it his first official act of his administration.
Amazingly, no national proclamations took place until the time of the Civil War. It was Abraham Lincoln, who said he was converted to Christ while walking in the midst of the graves at Gettysburg, that proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving for November 26, 1863.
This proclamation fit more closely to giving God thanks for the harvest in the midst of the turmoil of the Civil War, and has been hailed as the true origin of our present Thanksgiving Day.
For 75 years following, annual Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed by every President. Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt, in 1939, moved Thanksgiving one week earlier than the last in November out of pressure from merchants who wanted more time for Christmas. Congress, however, in 1941, disagreed, moving it back, permanently setting the fourth Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.
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