Gratitude...

I wonder why they didn't name this holiday "Gratitude Day"?

I think maybe the word "thanksgiving" is more generic and can be recognized as a holiday quicker than a more precise, action demanding, and descriptive word like "gratitude". We have heard the word thanksgiving for so many generations that we automatically identify it with things such as:
1- Turkey and yams and cranberry sauce;
2- The eve of the biggest buying day of the year;
3- Sliced turkey sandwiches for days;
4- Turkey salad sandwiches; and then,
5- Going on a diet!

I realize that the Bible says to give thanks... but that is just an outward expression of an inner attitude of gratitude! Thanksgiving comes from the lips and maybe the actions, but gratitude is a 'gut' thing. It is a way of being, thinking, feeling, and speaking and doing! I am eternally grateful for the Cross of Christ and for His command to me to love my own cross! Now if I really love my cross I will embrace it and what it means for me, what it demands from me, and what it will do for me. i will have splinters in my lips from kissing both crosses.

I am also grateful for the hard decisions that were made by our leaders through the years concerning taking the fight to the enemy as a nation. I Am grateful for the men and boys and women who gave their lives for this country (the American people), and all of the oppresed countries around the globe. Some of the decisions were probably bad ones, but they were meant well! God forgive the ones who made the bad ones. I do!

We have done more of the will of God in our short existence than any nation ever has. We haved sent more missionaries, more bibles, more help to build church buildings in third world countries than any other nation. We have removed open prayer and bible readings from our own school classrooms and the Ten Commandments from many public places, but you know what? God hears silent prayers (so teach your kids thay can pray in school). I have heard that as long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in Schools!! Open Bible reading is gone for now but not private study of the Scriptures to etch them in our minds and our kids minds!

This would all be fruitless; from the wars, the deaths, the prayers, to the Bible studies, if it were not for the Lord of our battles, our dead, and our living. Without this reality there would be no one to hear and answer prayers, and the bible would be just another book. I AM "Grateful " in our year of our Lord, 2008! "Except the Lord keep the house, the watchman waketh in vain. Except the Lord build a house they labor in vain that build it!"

But He is there... he is listening... He loves us and I for one am SO GRATEFUL!

And i am grateful for you! JACK