Thank God for His Provision For Us

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and for his wonderful deeds for mankind. Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of his works with songs of joy. Psalm 107:21–22 (NIV)

Happy Thanksgiving! For those of you in the United States, Thursday, November 23, 2023 is a time to eat and gather with friends and family as we celebrate Thanksgiving. The celebration does not stop with food and gatherings. It is a time to thank God for all that He provides for us. He gives us everything we need.

Giving thanks to God is something we can, and should, do every day! We can cultivate an attitude of gratitude by taking a few minutes every day to thank God for something He has given to us or done for us.

Notice how specific the Pilgrims were in what they were thanking God for during the first Thanksgiving, as quoted in The Hartford Courant “Proclamations From 1623 to Present” Thanksgiving article.ⁱ

On November of 1623, William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving.

“To all ye Pilgrims: In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forest to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us …, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house …,  on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”

The Pilgrims recognized that they had been rescued by the Heavenly Father. He gave them friendship with the Native Americans who taught them how to plant, and where to hunt and fish. The great Father had given them a year of abundant harvest. The Pilgrims thanked God for His blessings. I’m sure there was sacrifice in some of their thanksgiving, for the first year had been harsh and they had lost many lives during the journey and the first year in the new land.

We can learn much about thanking God from our Pilgrim forefathers and from the Psalmists, too.

• Gather together to give thanks to Almighty God for all His blessings.
• List our blessings so we think of them when we thank God.
• Joyfully tell others what the Lord has done for us (Psalm 107:22).
• Cultivate an attitude of gratitude to the Lord and to others around us.

As I thought about what I am thankful for this year, the following came to mind.

1. God’s love is unfailing (Psalm 107:21).
2. Salvation is in Christ alone (John 3:16; Acts 4:10–12).
3. God forgives me (Psalm 34:18; Psalm 103:1–5). Thank you, Jesus!
4. God has given us everything we need for a godly life (2 Peter 1:3).
5. God helps us to live productive lives for Him (2 Peter 1:5–8).
6. I have freedom to worship God. (Thank you, U.S. military, for your sacrifice to keep our freedoms.)
7. The Lord gave me my family and my friends. Next year we have our daughter and future son-in-love’s wedding to celebrate!
8. My church and Bible teaching pastor are gifts from God.
9. God provides my housing, clothing, food, education, employment and health. He has carried our family through times of unemployment and health problems.

There is so much more I could list that God has provided and for which I’m thankful.

Please add to the list! Make it your own. Post your list where you will see it every day, and take time to thank God for something each time you read it.

Please join me in the Psalmist’s prayer:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is the great God, and the great King above all gods. Psalm 95:1–3 (NKJV)

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iProclamations From 1623 to Present.” Hartford Courant, November 28, 2002. https://www.courant.com/2002/11/28/proclamations-from-1623-to-present/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CTo%20all%20ye%20Pilgrims%3A%20In,us%20from%20pestilence%20and%20disease%2C Accessed November 20, 2023.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Scriptures marked NKJV are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION (NKJV): Scripture taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION®. Copyright© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.