daily java

Daily Java:

They sang, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:12)

Today is Thanksgiving Day. It is a day in which we typically get together and try our level best to eat each other under the table.

But, of course, and we all know this – as we sit belching – there is more to it than that.

The first Thanksgiving followed a brutal winter in the new world. More people died than lived among the colonists from England during that first winter. But at the end of the harvest, the settlers gave thanks. Different legends are around, but it seems they invited their Indian friends who had helped them learn to plant corn, a native North American dish.

Above all else, they were grateful. And their leadership led them in a number of Thanksgiving prayers. They were grateful that they had made it through that first winter and wanted the Lord to know it.

The point was not the food, the point was the thanks.

That is why the designation Turkey Day is so grating. It denigrates the whole point of Thanksgiving in the first place.

We give thanks. We thank God who is the Source of all that is good and holy.

And if we don’t, all we become are gluttons.

And I do thank my God. Above all, I thank him for my wife, Ella, who has been with me though so much. I love her and cannot imagine life without her.

I thank God for my children. I know they love me and I love them and their families.

I thank God for my church. Life as a pastor in the past few years has been tumultuous at best, but the church we attend right now has accepted us and loved us. I thank God for them.

I thank God that I live in America with our freedoms of belief and life in general.

And above all else, I thank God for his Son, Jesus, who gave me life and joy and peace.

If I did not eat another thing, I would still thank him.

Thank you, Lord.