Dan Eakin/Contributing writer
Thanksgiving Day is a special day for many people.
It means a lot to a lot of people for many different reasons.
For many, it is a time for a family get together. To sit around the table and enjoy the traditional turkey, with ham, and all the trimmings. And enjoy being together again for a while.
For others, it is the big day to watch a football game.
For others it is a day of rest from work.
Primarily, it was intended to be a day to thank God for all the blessings he has bestowed upon us.
Since God sort of got kicked out of our schools, students and teachers are not supposed to thank God, at least not out loud at school.
Of course, the teachers can thank each other. They can thank the students and the students can thank the teachers. And we can all thank our school board for the many hours they put in to keep our school district running properly. And of course, the superintendent and others on the staff.
We don’t know much about the history of Thanksgiving before the pilgrims landed and had a joint Thanksgiving Day with the Indians in the 1600s.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November should be set aside as a day of Thanksgiving.
Of course, the Bible tells us of many things for which to be thankful.
After the children of Israel crossed over the Red Sea and escaped from Pharoah and his army, they had a time of thanksgiving to God. And even today, the Jews continue to celebrate the Passover as a time when God redeemed them from the enemy and from the one who had them in slavery.
King David was a thankful man. He was thankful of the mercies of God. He was thankful for God’s protection and provision.
“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known of thy faithfulness to all generations.” Psalm 89:1.
In Psalm 100, he said, “Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth for all generations.”
In the New Testament, we find that Jesus was thankful for simple things as food and drink. Before a meal, he would pray two prayers, one giving thanks for the food and another giving thanks for the drink.
What a far cry this is today from even professing Christians who dive right into a meal without first giving thanks to God, from whom all blessings flow.
The apostle Paul said, “Thanks be unto God for the unspeakable gift.” II Corinthians 9:15
There has been much discussion about what he meant by that.
In Romans 6:23, he had written, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
In Ephesians 2:8 he had written,”For by grace are ye saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave……his only begotten son…”
So obviously, the greatest gift is the gift of salvation made possible to us through the shed blood of God’s Son Jesus.
The old song says, “Count your many blessings, name them one by one, count your many blessings and see what God hath done.”
Another great hymn is, “Showers of blessings.”
We can’t count our blessings. There are too many.”
But we can be thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Dan Eakin is an Baptist minister and veteran newspaper man. He is a native of Dequeen, Arkansas as pastored churches all across Norhteast Texas for more than 60 years. He can be reached at daneakin_2000@yahoo.com.