Sharing the Spirit of Thanksgiving

As we enter November, you may be like me and be in amazement as to how quickly the year has gone! As we approach the holiday season, we cannot but begin to reflect on what has transpired in the past several months. Certainly, there have been trials, hurts and disappointments. But if we will take a moment to formulate a list of things and people we are thankful for, it will change our heart; our perception; our attitude toward God.

 We will remember how good God has been to us, to our families, to our church, and to our nation. He is a God of abundance! A God of an abundant harvest! For these things He provides, we are a thankful people! How will you share your abundance? How will you share your spirit of thanksgiving?

 God commands us to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (PSALM100:4).

 Shortly after the birth of this great nation, in 1789, the United States Congress and President George Washington recognized the need to give thanks to our God, our Creator. I pray you and yours enjoy and be blessed this Thanksgiving and Day of Prayer! And that you and yours enjoy and be blessed by the following:

 The proclamation read as follows:

  Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of the Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor:

    And whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States, a Day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

    Now  therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these states, to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be: That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His Providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union and plenty, which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instated;  for the civil and religious which we are now blessed,  and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general, for all the great and various favours which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

    And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions-  to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties.

Proclamation printed in the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser  October 9, 1789

Thanks be to God for His goodness!

In Christ,

Bryan Hardy