2020 has been a depressing year! It has been a year we would like to forget, but surely will not be able to forget. We could never have predicted–toilet paper shortages, no March Madness, virtual schooling, church cancellations, mask wearing, election nightmares, a pandemic, and even cancelled holiday gatherings. It has been a surprising, difficult, and truly, historic year. You have lived through it–but that is another part of the puzzle many didn’t live through it with the thousands dying from the virus.
So now comes Thanksgiving. Should we change it to lamentsgiving this year? Should we just skip it, because we don’t have anything to be thankful for this year?
Before we throw away thanksgiving to God and have our own pity party for what we have endured in 2020, let me suggest we consider these Bible stories . . .
- The Israelites were expected to offer thanksgiving offerings as a part of the Law of Moses when they were wandering around the wilderness for forty years eating manna everyday (Lev. 7:12-15).
- Israel endured many wicked kings, Babylonian captivity, famines, and pestilence throughout the Old Testament and God expected them to “enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise” (Ps. 100:4).
- The righteous patriarch Job chose to give praise and blessings to the Lord after Satan brought destruction upon his wealth and family (Job 1:20-22).
- Jonah offered thanksgiving to the Lord from a belly of a whale (Jonah 2:9).
- Jesus offered thanksgiving to God in the upper room when telling about his upcoming death, surrounded by Apostles arguing about who was the greatest–one of which was a traitor and thief (Mat. 26:27).
- Paul and Silas offer songs and prayers to God while in shackles and in prison (Acts 16:25).
- Paul commanded thanksgiving in our prayers while he was in prison instructing the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord (Phil. 4:4-7).
- In Revelation, we see the persecuted saints encouraged to give thanks despite their own predicament of possible martyrdom (Rev. 7:12. 11:17).
But even our own American history is filled with people who chose to give thanks despite their difficulty. Consider . . .
- The Pilgrims of Plymouth had regular days and feasts of Thanksgiving which gives us the tradition of our modern Thanksgiving.
- George Washington and Congress ordered a national day of thanksgiving in 1789 because of the Lord’s blessings before the war, during the war, and now in establishing a Constitution.
- Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving in November of 1863. This was in the midst of the horrific and terrible Civil War, yet they offered thanksgiving.
- Our nation chose to stop and give thanksgiving during World War 1 and 2. Families gathered despite the turmoil of the sixties and the losses in Vietnam and Korea.
- Our nation celebrated Thanksgiving in 1918 with extra incentive since WW1 just ended, but also despite a pandemic of the Spanish Influenza.
- Our nation celebrated Thanksgiving in November following the terrorist attacks on our nation in September of 2001.
As Christians and as Americans we are a people who have endured tough times, yet thanksgiving has been a constant thread through our history both in the Bible and in America. This is not just seen in our holiday gatherings, but chiefly in our daily prayers and speech we use to constantly offer praise and thanksgiving for the many blessings we have received.
Can we be thankful in 2020? Yes! We must be thankful in 2020; to be otherwise would go against all the teachings and examples of Scripture and our forefathers in America. We have an abundance of reasons to be thankful, so let’s open our hearts and minds with an attitude of thanksgiving to one another and God in 2020.
