Thanksgiving: Turkey Day
Often you will hear people refer to this coming Thursday as Turkey Day, as if the only reason we are taking this break is to gorge ourselves on what will likely be one of the largest meals spread on a table before us in the space of any calendar year.
I find that reference really disconcerting. Because not only is the entire point of this holiday missed when it is called Turkey Day, but in missing it, we also fail to think about the fact that this is EXACTLY how we have gotten ourselves into the mess, misery and confusion we are in now. According to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-25, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God NOR GAVE THANKS TO HIM, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Referring to Thanksgiving as Turkey Day is merely overt evidence of God's just sentence on our culture and our whole race that you can read about in verses 24 and 25.
The Bible is replete with commands to ABOUND in never-ending thanksgiving to our Creator - no matter the circumstances - because we owe to Him our very and every breath, our existence, and everything we own and possess as gifts from His hand which never should have come to us.
But thanksgiving is one thing. Thanks-feeling is another. We have all seen what sometimes happens at Christmas when a child gets a pretty good present from his grandparents. He tears into his prize and spends all of 11 seconds ogling it and is quickly off to the next one. Often a parent will seize him with a Gestapo grip behind his pajamas and tell the selfish ingrate to go over and thank his grandparents. He reluctantly and sheepishly wanders over and out comes an uncertain, forced, and vapid "Thank you, grandma and grandpa." Now that's one thing and not all that far from what most people give to God most of the time unless they have experienced some life-saving miracle just when they were getting a pretty good sense that some dire misfortune that was about to descend upon them.
But what Paul is talking about here is different from that. He is talking about a HEART-FELT FEELING of thanksgiving. Wouldn't it be nice sometime to hear a child say to his grandparents, "Grandma and grandpa, I want you to know that I am so glad and so fortunate that you are my grandparents. You do so much for me, and I deserve none of it. I love you with all my heart, and even if you never gave me anything ever again, I will always love you and thank God that you are my grandparents."
THAT, yes, THAT, is what the national holiday of Thanksgiving was set aside for by President Lincoln in 1863, a time when the people of America were much more in tune with and humble before their Creator. The sumptuous Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings is not a giant meal that we must strive to make sure that everybody in America, including the homeless and unfortunate, get to eat, but it is a symbol of the cornucopia of grace and goodness bestowed upon us - personally and nationally - in the past year by our Creator, and we owe Him sincere, genuine gratitude from the very depths of our being.
I find that reference really disconcerting. Because not only is the entire point of this holiday missed when it is called Turkey Day, but in missing it, we also fail to think about the fact that this is EXACTLY how we have gotten ourselves into the mess, misery and confusion we are in now. According to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-25, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God NOR GAVE THANKS TO HIM, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Referring to Thanksgiving as Turkey Day is merely overt evidence of God's just sentence on our culture and our whole race that you can read about in verses 24 and 25.
The Bible is replete with commands to ABOUND in never-ending thanksgiving to our Creator - no matter the circumstances - because we owe to Him our very and every breath, our existence, and everything we own and possess as gifts from His hand which never should have come to us.
But thanksgiving is one thing. Thanks-feeling is another. We have all seen what sometimes happens at Christmas when a child gets a pretty good present from his grandparents. He tears into his prize and spends all of 11 seconds ogling it and is quickly off to the next one. Often a parent will seize him with a Gestapo grip behind his pajamas and tell the selfish ingrate to go over and thank his grandparents. He reluctantly and sheepishly wanders over and out comes an uncertain, forced, and vapid "Thank you, grandma and grandpa." Now that's one thing and not all that far from what most people give to God most of the time unless they have experienced some life-saving miracle just when they were getting a pretty good sense that some dire misfortune that was about to descend upon them.
But what Paul is talking about here is different from that. He is talking about a HEART-FELT FEELING of thanksgiving. Wouldn't it be nice sometime to hear a child say to his grandparents, "Grandma and grandpa, I want you to know that I am so glad and so fortunate that you are my grandparents. You do so much for me, and I deserve none of it. I love you with all my heart, and even if you never gave me anything ever again, I will always love you and thank God that you are my grandparents."
THAT, yes, THAT, is what the national holiday of Thanksgiving was set aside for by President Lincoln in 1863, a time when the people of America were much more in tune with and humble before their Creator. The sumptuous Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings is not a giant meal that we must strive to make sure that everybody in America, including the homeless and unfortunate, get to eat, but it is a symbol of the cornucopia of grace and goodness bestowed upon us - personally and nationally - in the past year by our Creator, and we owe Him sincere, genuine gratitude from the very depths of our being.