Unto thee, God, do we give thank!

As we are about to enjoy the American holiday referred to as Thanksgiving, I thought it might good to reflect a bit upon the history of the holiday, as well as consider what biblical duties the saints have regarding being thankful.

Many of the traditions of our modern holiday result from the evolving of a holiday over time than it mimics the thanksgiving feast that William Bradford called for in 1621. The original “day” of thanksgiving was a three day feast that the Puritan pilgrims established for the purpose of thanking God for a good harvest. There are only a few remaining eyewitness snippets detailing this feast, the most notable coming from Edward Winslow:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. “

Edward Winslow was an English Puritan who refused to conform to the state church of England. They determined that their need to worship God as the Scriptures commanded was so great that they purposed to settle in the New World. The majority of the people didn’t survive the first year. Even Winslow lost his wife on the trip and remarried one of the widows. What is so moving about this feast of thanksgiving is that these Christians were thankful in the face of great adversity and hardship. Their thankfulness was not based upon a mere observance of a holiday, but rather upon a genuine thankfulness with the knowledge that God had poured out His blessings upon them. God had first tried them through the fires of great affliction, but they remained faithful and obedient and they had learned to be thankful for the most basic of divine blessings. In a letter to a friend, Winslow described their bounty:

“Our bay is full of lobsters all the summer and affordeth variety of other fish; in September we can take a hogshead of eels in a night, with small labor, and can dig them out of their beds all the winter. We have mussels ... at our doors. Oysters we have none near, but we can have them brought by the Indians when we will; all the spring-time the earth sendeth forth naturally very good sallet herbs. Here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also. Strawberries, gooseberries, raspas, etc. Plums of tree sorts, with black and red, being almost as good as a damson; abundance of roses, white, red, and damask; single, but very sweet indeed… These things I thought good to let you understand, being the truth of things as near as I could experimentally take knowledge of, and that you might on our behalf give God thanks who hath dealt so favorably with us.”

We are command throughout the Scriptures to be thankful. Thankfulness should be a recurring theme in the lives of the saints. Even the pagan can gather around a turkey, the family, and the football game and profess to be thankful for one day. There are a few things that we need to keep before us to enable us to understand that we must always give thanks.

First we need to recognize that apart from God’s grace we would be nothing but a despicable wretch dead in our trespasses and sin. We would be alienated from God, a people without hope and purpose, receiving only the wrath of God that is poured out upon the unrighteous. Then we need to realize that everything that we have, we have only because God has been pleased to give it to us. We need to recognize that we have been richly blessed of God. Thus we rejoice in the wife of our youth and we consider our children to be great blessings from God. We recognize that our gifts and abilities have been given to us from above. We recognize that God has formed and fashioned us and even as he holds all things together by His solemn decree, that all things work together for good to them that love God.

Finally, we need to realize that our life is but a vapor and that the things that we have been given have no guarantee of tomorrow. It is only as we trust in God and lean upon His faithful Word that we can truly free ourselves from anxiety and worry. We recognize that we will one day die. We know that our children may not wake on the morrow. Our homes can be destroyed through fire and pestilence. We know that grass withers and that the flower fades, but that our God and His Word will endure forever. We know that God will preserve His people and we grasp all of God’s precious promises with eyes of faith.

Why are the saints of God thankful? Because God has richly given us all things. We serve a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can even ask or think! Give thanks, for “He is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Christ has shed His blood for His church and we can enjoy the sweet fellowship of the saints. “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.”

“Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare.”