Blessed is the
nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen for His inheritance. The
LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His
dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts
individually; He considers all their works.
No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not
delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall
it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those
who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, To deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help
and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in
His holy name. Let Your mercy, O LORD,
be upon us, just as we hope in You (Psalm 33.12-22).
The Pilgrims came to America in search of a place where
they could worship freely in 1620. After a grueling winter where half of their
group died, they had a harvest feast to give thanks to God for His blessings on
them.
Franklin Roosevelt signed into law in 1941 a proclamation
declaring the 4th Thursday of November as a national Thanksgiving
Day. I urge you to pray with your family today as you gather to eat and
fellowship, give thanks to God our Father for all He is and all He has done for
you in Christ. Our freedoms are being challenged today. Let’s ask Him for mercy
on our personal lives, our families, and our nation. We need His intervention
and help. Time is short.
Many presidents throughout our nation’s existence have
issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation.
You can go online and read President Obama’s for this year for instance. But I
like the spirit of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation and I offer it
here for your reading pleasure.
May God’s gracious hand guide you and your family through
the days to come, protect you, and meet your every need. Happy Thanksgiving.
Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
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. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled
magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite
and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations,
order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony
has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that
theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the
Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful
industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or
the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines,
as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more
abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding
the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and
the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is
permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. 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. It has
seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and
gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American
People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United
States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign
lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of
Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And
I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble
penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender
care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the
lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently
implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation
and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the
full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused
the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
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