This time of year is a time of family. Many families get together for many different reasons, but one is so that all can catch up with other members of the family. Some times families swap out with this day and with Christmas meeting with one side or the other. It is still a good time to get together and renew the love that we have for one another. It also is a time to be thankful for our heritage. Our heritage is those family members who have gone before us who have made us into what and who we are. Some of them we may not have liked if we would have lived when they did, some would be close and dear friends, but we have to love them anyway because they are family. This is also how are spiritual family ought to be.
This is also a time for friends, football and over eating. After we spend time with the family, we love to spend time with our friends. We may go shopping with them the day after Thanksgiving. We may sit down with them and watch the Alabama – Auburn football game, or Georgia – Georgia Tech football game; we may even get together and watch some professional football games. But we have this time together let us be thankful for being together and having friends we can do this with. It is a time when most of us will overeat. We all seem to have plenty. The table may even groan with the weight of the food that is upon it. The table is not use to this kind of service anymore; we seem to have a different kind of culture today, but we do this once or twice a year, so let us enjoy it and be thankful for all that we have!
It really is a time of giving thanks for the blessings of life. When we understand the history of this day we ought to pause and give thanks for making it through another year. Those who started this country and set aside this time of the year were thankful for that very thing. They had made it through a year and had a bountiful harvest. We are not an agriculture country any more so we might forget our bountiful harvest. We have our time of harvest so let us be thankful for what we have and that we have made it.
As Christians we are to have a heart of thanksgiving every day. There is so much to be thankful for as a Christian. We have the blessings of worshipping God. We have the opportunity to serve Him and letting our light so shine and thus glorify our Father that is in Heaven. We do have the privilege of helping others. We are to do good to those who do not have all that we have. That includes physical and spiritual blessings. Thus we are to be going into the entire world and telling others of God’s saving grace, mercy, and love. Let us at this time, but not only this time of the year, be thankful for count our many blessings that God has so bountifully given unto us.
When we think of the freedoms we have and the sacrifices that have been made for us, and be thankful. We could go back to the beginning of our country and make mention of those who sacrificed for us. The founding fathers who had the foresight to write our Delectation of Independence and our Constitution. Those men sacrifice fame and fortune for us to have what we have in this country. The men who fought in our recent wars, which would include all the World Wars and the skirmishes since then, need our respect and honor because they placed it all on the line so that we can have the freedom that we enjoy today.
Let us be thankful. Let us go to God and thank Him for all the many blessings that we have. But let us as Christians do as the song suggests and count our blessing every day and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Love, Keith
