Why Every Day is a Thanksgiving Day

So much can be learned from the Pilgrims and their hardships, their perseverance, their faith, and their thankfulness. As we've been reading through Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, we've gotten a much bigger picture of this time in history. Highly recommended reading!

O for the grace to have a spirit of thanksgiving every day of the year! For those of us, especially, who are redeemed by the blood of Christ Jesus, there is not a fraction of time that shouldn't be full of gratitude to the LORD. Our salvation alone gives us thousands upon thousands of reasons to sing His praises.

"Thanksgiving implies thought of God. One may be glad all the day—and never think of God. Thanksgiving looks up with every breath, and sees God as Father from whom all blessings come. Thanksgiving is praise. The heart is full of gratitude. Every moment has something in it to inspire love. The lilies made Jesus think of his Father, for it was he who clothed them in beauty. The providence of our lives, if we think rightly of it, is simply God caring for us. Our circumstances may sometimes be hard, our experiences painful, and we may see nothing in them to make us glad. But faith teaches us that God is always good and always kind, whatever the present events may be. We may be thankful, therefore, even when we cannot beglad. Our hearts may be grateful, knowing that good will come to us even out of pain and loss.

This is the secret of true thanksgiving. It thinks always of God and praises him for everything. The song never dies out in the heart, however little there may be in the circumstances of life to make us glad. The influence of an ever-praising life on those it touches, is almost divine. The way to diffuse a spirit of thanksgiving—is to be thankful yourself. A complaining spirit makes unhappiness everywhere.

Christian thanksgiving is the life of Christ in the heart, transforming the disposition and the whole character. Thanksgiving must be wrought into the life as a habit—before it can become a fixed and permanent quality. An occasional burst of praise, in the midst of years of complaining, is not what is required. Songs on rare, sunshiny days; and no songs when skies are cloudy—will not make a life of gratitude. The heart must learn to sing always. This lesson is learned only when it becomes a habit which nothing can weaken. We must persist in being thankful. 

When we can see no reason for praise—we must believe in the divine love and goodness, and sing in the darkness. Thanksgiving has attained its rightful place in us, only when it is part of all our days and dominates all our experiences."

~J.R. Miller The Thanksgiving Lesson With love, Trisha