“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever,” Psalm 136:1-3.
Today is our national Thanksgiving Day. The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in the New World by the Pilgrim Fathers in the year 1621. How irregularly it was observed in many years that followed is all a part of history, much of it unwritten. In the year 1789, President George Washington issued the proclamation for a national Thanksgiving Day. He said that it was the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of the Almighty God. The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, discontinued calling for a national Thanksgiving Day. Thereafter, some states observed a Thanksgiving Day and other states did not. It was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November to be the official National Thanksgiving Day. If you study the custom of celebrating a Thanksgiving Day carefully, you will learn that history played a special role in observing a Thanksgiving Day.
The Psalm quoted above calls upon all to give thanks to God for His goodness and His mercy. These are the first three verses of Psalm 136. However, from the beginning to the end the psalmist calls upon us to give thanks to God as he reminds us of many years of history beginning with the creation of the world and of all creatures by the almighty hand of God. The psalmist continues to call upon all people to thank God as he traces the history of God leading His chosen people, the children of Israel, to the promised land of Canaan.
Thus, we learn that there is a relationship between knowing history and giving thanks for the many blessings that come to us from our good and merciful God, which He bestows upon us for both body and soul. If you forget the past, you also will be inclined to forget to give thanks in the present and the future. Without God’s blessings we would not have the food to survive! The psalmist writes, “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praises on the harp to our God, who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains. He gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry,” Psalm 147:7-9. With the psalmist we must say, “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing,” Psalm 145:16.
Especially, we are reminded in the words of the psalmist of God’s mercy, that is, God’s undeserved love revealed to us in the sending of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Savior from sin, death, and the devil. The apostle John writes, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1. The apostle Paul wrote, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us . . . If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life,” Romans 5:8, 10. God loved us when we were not loving, lovely, or lovable! “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” John 3:16. Thank God! Thank God on bended knee for what He has done, what He is doing now, and what He will do for you eternally!
We pray: Dear heavenly Father, we thank You from the bottom of our hearts for all of Your blessings for both body and soul. Keep us in the faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus. Give us thankful hearts to praise and glorify You, the only true God. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.