Oh Give Thanks
Every November we cross the line from summer to fall and for us in Colorado winter always comes in with a bang.
This time of year, we take time to give thanks, beginning in a shared feast in 1621 and celebrated as a nation as the last Thursday of November in 1863. There is something to this time of year that we take time to remember to have gratitude. The change in the air, a harvest of the years’ worth of work now behind us and we get to take a moment to give thanks.
Our thanksgiving is often a chance to remember and to be grateful for all the good things that we have, and we should. Yet, I find it interesting that Abraham Lincoln declared a day to give thanks not during a time of peace and prosperity but during a time of war and conflict. In time that the very fabric of the nation was being torn apart, he, from his office, declared, "give thanks."
Why would giving thanks be so important as winter is approaching and a war outside the doors?
It is because we need to give thanks not for the harvest we have but because of who the Lord is and who we are in Him.
The author of Psalm 107 teaches us about thanksgiving. Beginning the Psalm with the sweet and comforting words:
Our thanksgiving is often a chance to remember and to be grateful for all the good things that we have, and we should. Yet, I find it interesting that Abraham Lincoln declared a day to give thanks not during a time of peace and prosperity but during a time of war and conflict. In time that the very fabric of the nation was being torn apart, he, from his office, declared, "give thanks."
Why would giving thanks be so important as winter is approaching and a war outside the doors?
It is because we need to give thanks not for the harvest we have but because of who the Lord is and who we are in Him.
The author of Psalm 107 teaches us about thanksgiving. Beginning the Psalm with the sweet and comforting words:
"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,
For His steadfast love endures forever!"
The words bring peace and comfort as we can think of the blessings we have, but then the writer of the Psalm takes us down a different path. A path I believe is very similar to how Abraham Lincoln saw the need for thanks during the Civil War. The writer follows with verse 2:
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
Whom He has redeemed from trouble
The writer does not focus on our blessing but shifts us to look at trouble. There were some who wander in desert waste, some who sit in darkness, some who are fools in their sinful ways, and some who went down to the sea in ships. Each of these show the trouble of life, yet this is a call to thanksgiving, a psalm of thanksgiving and praise.
In one verse that keeps repeating after each trouble, We are reminded that we give thanks:
In one verse that keeps repeating after each trouble, We are reminded that we give thanks:
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
And He delivered them from their distress…
Let them thank the LORD for His steadfast love
In the time of need and trouble our nation called for a day of thanksgiving, today in our need and trouble we are being called to thanksgiving because we worship the God, our King who, “turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water” (Psalm 107:35).
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