Thanksgiving 06/29/2011
 
It is no secret amongst my friends and family that Spring and Fall are my two favorite times of the year.  I lived the first 25 years of my life in areas of the country where the humidity of the summer made it feel as though you were slapped in the face by a wet towel as you stepped outside and the wind and snow of the winter would have made polar bears and penguins feel at home.
Maybe this favor of mine is a result of Spring and Fall being two of the most noticeable seasonal changes of the year.  Spring just fades into summer and Fall freezes slowly into Winter, but Spring literally springs to life and the Fall is such a contrast in temperature, landscape, and daylight to Summer.  Maybe it is as simple as Spring Turkey season and Fall deer season being the highlights of my years since early childhood.  Whatever the reason I enjoy these seasons they both provide reminders of what God has done.  
At Easter we are reminded of God’s love for mankind as evidenced through Christ’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection.  During Thanksgiving we are pausing for a moment to offer thanks.  Offering of thanks requires a knowledge of what God has done for us and how He has worked on our behalf.
At our church we spend about a half-hour every Wednesday night praying for the needs and desires of our church family, their families, and our community.  Once every 3 months we take time to recall how God has worked to answer specific prayer requests.  In a knowledge of how God has answered we take that half-hour of prayer to offer praise and thanks.  
So often we are all guilty of confusing gratitude and thanks.  Feeling grateful for what we have is not the same as offering thanks for what we have been given.  Gratitude is a feeling of thanks, but giving thanks is an acknowledgement of appreciation.  Thanksgiving is the result of gratitude.  
It is insufficient to simply be grateful for what God has done.  Sufficiency here rests in expressing that gratitude.  Thanksgiving in often a time of year that we take opportunity to let our friends and family know how thankful we are for them or we tell them what we are thankful for.  This is an appropriate exercise in giving thanks, but I have focused here purposefully on thanking God because that is what this day is reserved for. 
Though we associate Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president responsible for making it a National Holiday it was on October 3rd 1789 that George Washington made a proclamation as America’s first President.  The following is an excerpt of that proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to 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 especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be --That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks…
.   George Washington understood the purpose in giving thanks. As Washington acknowledged God as ‘…the Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be’ so Thanksgiving has always, is now, and always will be a day ‘of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God’
 


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