Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada...

Each time I hear someone say "Happy Thanksgiving" the questions that come to mind are:

What are you thankful for?

Who are you thankful to?

It's interesting - yet sad - how much this special occassion has changed in focus. In fact it has lost focus for a lot of people. If "lost", it helps to check where you are coming from so let's look at the history of Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, occurring on the second Monday in October (since 1959), is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references God and the holiday is celebrated in churches, the holiday is also celebrated in a secular manner.

On January 31, 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed:

“ A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.”*

The Who and what of Thanksgiving are clear in the proclamation - sad how people have moved away from this initial intention. If you look around you, you see that God has blessed you and yours with bountiful harvests in various areas of life. Like, Bishop David Oyedepo said "if you can think, you can thank." There is a clear promise for all who praise & thank God in Psalms 67:5-7 - tells us the result of thanksgiving:

"May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. 

Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God, will richly bless us.

Yes, God will bless us, and people all over the world will fear him." (NLT) 

Too many of us spend a lot of time asking God for things whnever we pray but "if the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."**

To wrap up, here are a few wise words...I pray they sink into your spirit and make thanksgiving spring forth from your heart:

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.***

Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day****~neither should you.

Happy Thanksgiving!!  

 

 

Sources:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

** Meister Eckhart

*** Edward Sandford Martin

****Robert Caspar Lintner