Word for Word 12/1/21

Thankfulness

Last week we had the privilege of celebrating Thanksgiving.  For many people the Thanksgiving holiday is a time to get together and eat way too much while watching football. Quite often we forget that the original purpose of the day was to give thanks to God!

We can be assured that the Pilgrims did not forget to thank God at the first Thanksgiving they celebrated in 1621. Upon landing in Massachusetts they must have been amazed when they were greeted by an English speaking Indian named Squanto. Squanto had been captured in 1605 and sent to Spain to be sold as a slave.  A group of friars took him in and he was eventually able to persuade them to let him return home. He managed to get to London and after a few years of working there was able to make it back to the New World in 1619.  He was able to help the Pilgrims make peace with the local tribes and, after a brutal winter in which many of the Pilgrims died,  was able to teach them how to plant crops using fish as fertilizer.  It was in the fall of 1621, after a bountiful harvest, that the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving to thank God for His bountiful care over them. God had been looking out for the Pilgrims long before they ever sailed for the new world.

Have you ever stopped to consider that God is working on your behalf long before you realize what you need?  Many times things have happened that, when you look a little more closely, you can see God at work long beforehand to bring it about.   Recognizing God’s influence on events takes effort on our part but is necessary if we are going to give Him the glory that is due Him.

When bad things happen we are quick to blame God but do we also give Him credit and thank Him for the good things? The Pilgrims had just gone through an unbelievably difficult winter where over half of them either froze to death or died of starvation, yet, we don’t read any accounts of them being bitter at God! They recognized that even though horrible things had happened to them it was only by God’s divine intervention that any of them survived.

In First Thessalonians 5:18 it says: “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  This is not only telling us that we are not only to give thanks continually, but that there is always something to be thankful for! God would not tell us to be thankful if there were not something for which to give thanks.  This also means that giving thanks is not just a once a year thing. It is to be a yearlong attitude of thankfulness.

Pastor Duane Smith
First Baptist Church
Waukon