From across the pond, and close at home, happy Thanksgiving! I intended to get this post out on Thanksgiving, but between family time, three jobs, and a thirteen-hour shift… well, I didn’t. Yet, here it is anyway! It’s a Christmas miracle.
Yes, that greatest of all American holidays had come around and gone again. It’s a uniquely Christian concept: a day to praise God for His blessings to ourselves, our families, our churches, our country. And it has uniquely American characteristics: family, pies, snoring uncles and dads and grandpas – oh my! And ladies chatting in kitchens as the children conduct their mischief. And if you are like me, and your family are the Midwest gun-toting type, the smell of gun powder will be in your memories too.
No other nation has a holiday comparable to America’s Thanksgiving. Why? For the simple reason that no other nation shares the historical roots of such a holiday. For, you see, Thanksgiving is not only a holiday that stands for American Liberty, but also stands in direct opposition to all that opposes American Liberty.
Those first pilgrims fled from the religious and financial tyranny of the Old World. They risked all – not for wealth and fortune, but for freedom – but for freedom, and primarily religious freedom.
Only one soul was lost while crossing the Atlantic on their fifty-foot-long vessel (in those days, that in and of itself was unheard of for a voyage like that). However, over a thousand years of tyrannical darkness pursued them, and it almost cost them all of their lives. They attempted, as mandated by their sponsors in the Old World, a form of what would later be called socialism or communal living. The results? Over half of them died that first winter from starvation or exposure.
Thanksgiving marks the foundation principle of America. The idea that the most important truth is how people relate to God as individuals – and that that relation was the foundation of human culture and civilization. And that without this founding principle, death was all that would follow. That the only system of government that actually safe-guards life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is one which does not impede upon the rights of life, liberty, and property, but protects them on the basis of Biblical truth.
Returning to these foundations was what saved those first pilgrims. Courageously trusting God enough to ditch the old models, religious and economic, and aspire to Liberty is what Thanksgiving is all about. The whole Congress and House at the founding of America made this explicit: “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.”[1]
According to George Washington, Americans on Thanksgiving celebrate so “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….”[2] Thanksgiving is a day in remembrance when God saved America before it was America from the sins of tyranny from government and from one’s fellowman. Thanksgiving is God’s Day, and Thanksgiving is American.
There is one more thing Washington wrote long, long ago. It bears particular weight to our own generation, and so I will include the quote here. Continuing on from the thought previously quoted in this article, Washington wrote the following:
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 properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.[3]
The Late Rush Limbaugh has done a wonderful job diving more deeply into the true story of Thanksgiving. You can find a longer YouTube video, and a short X video, below. If you don’t know the true story of Thanksgiving, this is the best place to start!
God bless America; my country, and the last great hope for human Liberty on earth. Do not for sake your God.
[1] George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789, https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving/proclamation
[2] George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789, https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving/proclamation
[3] George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789, https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving/proclamation
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