Thanksgiving Reflections

Many of us here in the States are celebrating Thanksgiving - preparing meals - Turkey and other goodies, traveling to love ones, and for many, the start of the Christmas shopping season - though I suspect retail sales will be adversely affected by the current economic woes.

Yet I am very thankful - for my aging parents whom I will get to visit soon in January, for my wonderful and supportive spouse Gerda, my delightful children - Hannah and David, for my siblings and their families (too numerous to name), for my church family and wonderful pastor whom has faithfully preached the Word, for meaningful and productive work and for good health.

In response, please allow me to share this following verse: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever (Psalm 136:1–3) . The Psalmist is making the point, repeating the same phrase three times - no other passage in the Bible where any other phrase appears three times in succession.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, whom successfully led the country amid the severest crisis - the American Civil War, said this

We have been the recipients of the choisest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.