A day set by our forefathers was selected for November to be a day of Thanksgiving. It was to be a time in which all Americans were to pause and thank God for the blessings bestowed on our nation. Many Novembers have come and gone and we have witnessed a change in attitude for what our forefathers originally planned. The name of God would appear to be a foreign sounding word to many in Washington and other places. We have allowed a small group to tell all the rest of us how prayer in school is so dangerous. They even fear prayer at ball games or graduation services at our schools. Some resent our money having the words, “In God We Trust” place on them.
It is difficult at best to get a Bible to a prisoner in our country. Whereas if said prisoner asked for a “prayer rug” to face Mecca that must be taken care of quickly. A professional ballplayer expresses faith in God and within a year’s time he was no longer in the game. He had guided the Broncos to the first playoff game and later to their first playoff victory. Such a man speaking about faith was a danger to the league. Another player knocks a woman out in the elevator and we struggle over him losing four games in a suspension. On the college level a quarterback is in trouble with the law and we suspend him for a whole half of a ball game.
Four Americans are murdered in Benghazi and two more have their heads cut off and shown via the internet. The response from Washington was it was because of a video and attached to it such words like “tragic” or “horrible”. I would have never thought that murder of American citizens could be defined in such poor terms like tragic or something similar. Perhaps far removed from memory but I can remember a terrorist executed a man in a wheel chair and threw him overboard from a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Ocean. The terrorist would find sympathy in some place called Libya. Perhaps it has been too long but that is the nation where Benghazi is located.
In the face of such increasing dangers in the world and in our country, how can we pause to be thankful at this time of the year? Thanksgiving to God is not about what is lost or gained, but what we have received. The Christian, more so than the person of the world, should know that tribulations come because the world is occupied by those who have no regard for God nor reverence for the image He placed within man (Gen. 1:26). We therefore glory in tribulations because of where those tribulations lead us. They lead us to patience, experience and hope (Rom. 5:3-5). From that hope our hearts are filled by the love for God which is made known to us by what the Spirit has revealed.
I had an occasion some years back to be at Arlington National Cemetery for the changing of the guard. To have been part of seeing it and looking beyond to all those crosses and graves caused the tear ducts of my eyes to fill. I could not stand on such a day without thinking of the price paid for freedom by those so buried and by their families who gave up their sons and daughters. We pause to say “thanks” to our God, not for what we have lost or gained but for the gift of memory in our hearts as to the price of freedom.
We should, likewise, pause to remember what we have received from God for our spirits. The sinner to the saint because of obedience to the will of Christ (I Peter 1:22) From the catacombs of Rome to comfortable buildings in which we can worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-25). To be in possession of the right or freedom to stand upon the housetops and speak to the world what was said in private by Jesus to His apostles. To live in a time in which we can as parents turn off the televisions and/or computers and say, “let us study the Bible.”
We are to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, not just in November (Heb. 13:15). This verse also states what that sacrifice is. It is our lips giving THANKS to God to His NAME! Amen and amen.