THURSDAY November 27, 2025
Thanksgiving
...in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
When things are going well, it is easy enough to be thankful to God; but it is difficult to offer thanksgiving in trying times––but we must.
The pilgrims’ journey to America was not an easy one. The reason they left the shores of England was to search for a new home where they could worship freely in a Christian society. The very first Thanksgiving was recorded in the writings of Edward Winslow and William Bradford, who were both separatist leaders. They traveled on the Mayflower in 1620 to the New World, enduring sicknesses and the arduous, long journey. Once there, Bradford wrote:
“Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof."
In his writing, Winslow penned:
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day, killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. ...many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Christians are to be thankful in every season of life, because God faithfully carries us through the seasons of the year.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest ... join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.
~Thomas O. Chisholm~
For more from Raul Ries, please visit SomebodyLovesYou.com!
