Remembering Thanksgiving

Last year I posted these thoughts about Thanksgiving. I entitled the post “Thanksgiving: Now it’s just ‘that holiday before Christmas.” I was confronted with similar thoughts recently and decided to revisit the idea of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is just next week. My how the time has flown! For the past few weeks I’ve been seeing Christmas commercials on tv, hearing them on the radio, and seeing marketing all around stores in this (and surely every other) area. There are radio stations playing Christmas music. Here in Texas, even before the weather turns colder, folks are talking about Christmas. And let’s be clear, there’s nothing wrong with Christmas. Still, once again I must ask the same question: Amidst all this Christmas holiday marketeering, where has Thanksgiving gone?
Our culture today obsesses over getting and giving this time of year, and often we can forget to stop and be thankful in the midst of this season. I know that I can fall into that trap. As a kid, having my birthday the week of Thanksgiving really made me look forward to it. However, it was for the same reason that kids look forward to Christmas — presents. Now I still try to look forward to Thanksgiving, but today I have a desire to be thankful, and express my thanks to God for all that He has given to me.

So as you walk through the stores, listening to the Christmas music and doing some Christmas shopping — enjoy it, but remember to pause and be thankful for what God has given you. As I look forward to all that I desire for God to do and give to me, I am compelled to look around and look back at all He has done for me, for all that He has given me, and cannot help but be thankful. Perhaps you could tell somewhat this week the things that you are thankful for.

Throwing Out the Sour Grapes and Embracing the Change

I wanted John McCain to win this election.  I believed (and still do) that he would have been a better president than Barak Obama.  McCain is much closer to my own conservative worldview than Obama.  I’ve also spent the better part of the last year investing myself mentally and emotionally in the proposition that “McCain is good for the country and Obama is bad.”

It would be easy to say that America screwed up, and I’ve thought that.  However, at the end of the day Barak Obama is going to be our new president.  I am, like many, disappointed.  Still, the bitterness and angry recriminations of what “might have” or “should have” been are ill-befitting of a follower of Christ.   And if that were not enough, the bitter sentiments and sour grapes of poor losers are some of the things which I have most disdained in political opponents.  The fact is, I will get over it.  The election is over, and it will be important for all of us to move forward, as Americans rather than partisans.

Am I over the election? Not yet.  To say that I have given it up and moved on would simply be false.  Still, I must recognize (as must we all) that God is in control — and if Jesus does not come back tonight — the sun will indeed rise tomorrow.  For tonight, though, I have learned some things.  For far too long now, although I have talked about trusting God, I have had a tendency to put my faith in the GOP and John McCain as its current standard bearer.  It is no easy change to diagnose such a condition and shift my trust completely back to the One in whom it should always have been.  Yet it is a change which I must and shall endeavor to make — and one which I hope you too will make if you have not already done so.

We cannot know what the state of our union shall be next year, or over the next four years.  Indeed, I am reminded that God is not on America’s side (though that can be a bitter pill when one is confronted with it).  It is not His place to be on “our side,” but rather our place to be on His.  Whether our nation is prosperous under a new administration, or whether we suffer terrible hardships I cannot say, nor should I try.  Still, through good times and bad, our faith must remain not in a man or an institution; no king or kingdom, but in Christ alone.  Our Christian forebears and many of our brethren even now have suffered under regimes far worse than an Obama administration will ever be.  I am therefore thankful for some things that have been accomplished with the election of Barak Obama.

• I have been reminded that we must not put our trust in human beings or systems, for they will always disappoint.
• Tonight we witness an historic occasion, where our nation has chosen for ourselves our first Black President.
• Our nation will once again witness the orderly transfer of power from one executive leader to another – a feat which is possible only in the greatest of nations and one for which we should be grateful.
• Our liberal friends and loved ones will not be moving away as they promised, but will stay here in the United States.
• To my knowledge, at this point there have been no riots.
• The will of the American people has prevailed and our representative democracy continues forward successfully.
• God has been known to use many who were deemed unlikely or unworthy in ages past, our day is no different.
• Scripture tells us that the hearts of kings are in Gods own hands, and He directs them as He so chooses (Prov 21:1).

There are no doubt many other things for which I can be thankful.  I hope that I will be able to recognize them in coming days. In the meantime, I salute our new president elect, Barak Obama.  Congratulations Mr. President!