A Thankful Nation

It’s appropriate this week to set aside our concerns and issues to think about what’s right in our lives. During this week of turkey, football, shopping frenzy, “beginning to look a lot like Christmas”, turkey day, Macy’s day, let’s think about all that we have to be thankful for.

I’m grateful for a nation where we’re still allowed to practice and share our faith in Jesus Christ in great freedom and openness.

I’m thankful of 100,000 military personnel in Iraq who are setting aside personal comfort to fight for the safety of all Americans.

I’m thankful for a President who begins each day reading Blackaby’s Experiencing God devotional.

I’m grateful that families are still at the core of American values and experience.
I’m grateful for stores that still say Merry Christmas.

I’m grateful to live in a country that enjoys abundance of food, shelter, clothing and conveniences that most of the world only dreams of.

I’m grateful for tens of thousands of churches where God’s word is taught with power and clarity.

I’m grateful for Christian radio stations like Moody Broadcasting which fill the airwaves with sound teaching, practical encouragement and uplifting music.

I’m thankful for films like “A Night with the King” and “The Nativity” that beautifully portray God’s truth.

I’m grateful for authors and composers and publishers whose work helps me in my walk with Christ.

I’m thankful for a heritage that allows a national expression of thanksgiving and also acknowledges a source of that blessing: our heavenly Father. I join with the words of one of our greatest American presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who in his Thanksgiving Declaration said this:

"The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

I’m thankful to be an American by birth.

And a child of God by new birth.