Are you concerned with all that is going on in America today? As followers of Christ, we know that nothing surprises God. He is in control. He has a plan. When you are feeling overwhelmed, I encourage you to dig into Scripture. One of the most vital things we can do in these uncertain times is to take an eternal perspective.

When we concentrate on the blessings of God, particularly His greatest gift of salvation through Jesus Christ for those who have placed their trust in Him, we will strengthen our relationship with Him and look at our circumstances with a new and more positive outlook. This in turn will give us more impetus to trust God to provide for all our needs and to direct our paths.

One of the main issues in discussing Thanksgiving is the One to whom thanks should be given, and that, of course, is God.

Looking back to the first American celebration of Thanksgiving, we know that the Plymouth colonists landed in the late fall of 1620, just before the dead of winter. Not able to plant, most of them stayed aboard their ship, the Mayflower, though the winter, where about half of them died from exposure or disease.

When the survivors emerged in the spring, a bilingual Native American by the name of Squanto aided the colonists by showing them how to cultivate crops, hunt, fish, and avoid danger in their new environment. The Pilgrims’ first harvest was a success, and the result was a three-day celebration of thanks in November 1621, in which they invited their new Native American friends who had helped them so graciously.

However, the Pilgrims knew that in spite of their hardships the previous year, it was ultimately God who had provided them a new home in the New World. Had they landed a few miles away either north or south, they may have missed their encounter with Squanto, had a disastrous first crop, and all perished. But God’s provision had sustained them.

George Washington called upon Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving in 1789, in gratitude for a successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In the dark days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official American holiday, but asked that citizens request of God to “commend to His tender care of all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”

It is clear the thanks should be given regardless of the outward circumstances in which we find ourselves. “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever,” Psalm 136:1.

Jesus Himself expressed thanks to His Heavenly Father. As part of His prayer when He raised Lazarus from the dead, He said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me”(John 11:41). At the Last Supper, He took time to give thanks for the elements of the first Communion service (Matthew 26:27), although He was just hours from the events that would ultimately lead to His death on our behalf. 

We can always find something about which we can express our thanks to God.  

We can be thankful that He has led us by His Holy Spirit into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ that has provided us with an eternal home in glory. We can thank Him for the opportunity of living in a nation that allows us the freedom to vote. We can thank Him for family and friends who reflect His love for us. May we always be mindful of these things.

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. 

Thanksgiving is all about knowing the truth of who we really are in Christ, and what we have received from the hand of God. It is the understanding that we are not just here as an accident of chance or circumstance. We are not just the product of a biological mistake of evolution. But we are men and women created in the image and likeness of God Himself. We are designed to have a relationship with God and to have fellowship with Him.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” James 1:17.