Thanksgiving Meditation

Imagine yourself having traveled from the country you have known and loved to a new land – unsettled, wild, unpredictable, dangerous. In this new place there is no guarantee that you will be fed, that you will prosper or even that you will survive. And still you travel across an ocean in a small, rickety merchant ship, crowded with 102 other pilgrims – seekers, like yourself – for a place to start a new life.

The draw of that new life was so powerful to those pilgrims that sailed 65 days across the Atlantic Ocean to Plymouth colony that they were willing to endure a painful and debilitating winter, suffer starvation and disease, and risk attack from Indians so that they would be able to experience life together as a free Christian community.

In late September or early October of 1621 – almost a year after they had arrived – the pilgrims were ready for a breakthrough. Half of their community had died. They faced another difficult winter without enough food. The Indians, whom they had only recently begun to interact showed up with five deer, vegetables, and some wild game and shared with the pilgrims a meal. It was in the “nick of time” as they say.

This meal wouldn’t have been called Thanksgiving by the Pilgrims. They had other religious holidays by that name. But they were thankful nonetheless. They were not alone. God had opened a providential door for them to trade with the nearby Indians and with that came the confidence that they would make it through their second winter in this new land.

I think what has endured in our memory of the Pilgrims has been their absolute reliance - when they had come to the end of themselves - that God would provide. I’m not sure that if they had come and not faced the incredible hardship that they faced that we would be celebrating a day we call “Thanksgiving.”

No, it seems that somehow being thankful comes with the recognition that we rely on something deeper and greater for our provision – that what some people call luck we can with the eyes of faith recognize as what we call - God’s providence. In the economy of God’s providence – God has a plan and as we choose to live and work and love and worship in agreement with God’s plan, we find that our most fundamental needs as human beings are cared for.

This brings joy, doesn’t it? To know that all we have to do is say yes to God and God will care for his children whom he already loves! We no longer have to strive against a resistant and unmerciful existence, we can instead have faith that in obedience and surrender to God is life.

Mt 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

It was a lot like some other pilgrims we read about in the Old Testament. As the prophet Jeremiah had foretold, the Israelites would spend 70 years in Babylonian captivity and then released to their homeland to rebuild the temple. Around 538 BC, groups of Israelites were allowed to return to Jerusalem and there they were allowed to begin rebuilding the Jewish temple. The Jews who returned pooled their few resources to pay the masons and carpenters to build the new temple. As they witnessed the foundation being laid they celebrated and praised the God who had delivered seen them through.

Ezr 3:10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

That’s the kind of noise we should make when we see the goodness of God. When was the last time you shouted for joy that God had delivered you from sickness, from depression, from a poverty mentality, from loss – so much so that your neighbors had to call the Sheriff’s dept because the noise you made was so great! Against a larger tapestry, we are able to see the hand of God at work so that even pagan princes serve the purposes and divine plan of God. It’s when we pause long enough to express our thankfulness that we can see a loving God connecting all the dots in our life.

This was certainly true in Ezra’s day. It’s also true in ours. God isn’t finished yet. The people and places and events that the Spirit of God uses to bring about His kingdom are the people and places and events you and I see, touch, and hear every single day. God is still at work and his intentions are good.

We may feel at times as if we are in a season of Babylonian captivity. We may feel as if we’re always waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled over our lives. But persevere and wait with great expectation. God has a day of deliverance set aside for each one of us when we can look book with “Aha!” eyes and see the lengths God has gone to do draw us into deeper relationship with him.

Galatians 5:1 says “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” And every day in Christ is another day toward our ultimate freedom and purpose. Let’s then receive each day with thanksgiving. God is working out his purposes in us. And his purposes are good. It’s Jeremiah who tells us about God’s good plans in Jer 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Let us pray.


Gracious and loving God, today we bend our hearts toward you and receive your blessings with thanksgiving and praise. Send your spirit to breakthrough our doubt and “right now” thinking to see your grander movement in our lives. Allow each day, Lord, to be a day we receive as a blessing from you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.