Current Lessons
Lesson No. Forty-Four

Thoughts on Thanksgiving 2024

I have previously written about the importance of Thanksgiving See the following links:

- Squanto – An Instrument in Preparation for the Restoration

- Thankful that the Gospel is Our Sail, Our Anchor, and our Helm

- Faith, Pilgrims, and Thanksgiving

An excellent editorial on Thanksgiving: I have also collected considerable material on Thanksgiving, and as I have reflected on Thanksgiving 2024 I have been drawn to a Thanksgiving 1998 editorial by the Federalist Society. (The Federalist Society is an American legal organization that advocates for an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution) Twenty six years have come and gone, but the thoughts in this editorial are just as relevant now, and probably even more so. The concluding paragraphs of this editorial express my feelings very well:

“In an age of great, widespread physical and material comfort, our deepest deficits are spiritual ones – most especially, a lack of accurate perception of the depth and breadth of the bounties that God alone has bestowed upon us. Too often, we look to government as the provider and guarantor of the many blessings we enjoy, rather than to our Heavenly Father. And also too often, we forget to gratefully cherish the best of our national blessings, that liberty for which our Pilgrim forebears were willing to risk all comfort and security. As Abraham Lincoln noted so many years ago, ‘…[It is announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord….It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.’

“On this day of Thanksgiving 26 November 1998, may God rest your heart and mind, may He bless and keep you and your family and may He continue to extend His blessing upon our great nation, guiding us one and all by His Word. May He impress upon us the spirit of our forefathers, their soul-deep craving for freedom, expressed with courage and wisdom, as we meet the particular challenges of our days.

“’No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Give of good who has blessed us.’– Theodore Roosevelt.

“And let us always approach our Heavenly Father with true thankfulness – not just today, but every day – by acknowledging our utter dependence on Him to supply our wants and needs, for in Him we live and move and have our being. Even self-reliance is, at its root, reliance on Him.

“’Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:6-7).”

Washington and Lincoln issued the first and second National Thanksgiving Proclamations. It is widely agreed that they are the two greatest Presidents of the United States. Both men recognized our dependence on God, and they gave thanks to Him for His blessings.

Part of President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789:

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Part of President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863:

After reciting many of the blessing our country had received from God even during the dark days of the Civil War, Lincoln concluded: “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…”

Testimony: For the past many years the President of the United States, from both parties, has issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation. However, unlike Washington and Lincoln, gratitude to God and a recognition of our dependence on Him is never mentioned. Today the only place our children will be taught these things is in the home and family.

The need to teach Thanksgiving at home and in the family reminds me of an experience I had in the office of President Gordon B. Hinkley with William Bennett, then Secretary of Education in the Reagan Cabinet and a well-known author. In that meeting Secretary Bennett described a history book widely used in elementary schools nationwide which described pilgrims as people who take long trips. President Hinkley responded that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that our Founders and Colonizers had faith in and were directed by God. He said it was important that parents teach this truth to their children. This Thanksgiving is a good time to do that.

Released on November 24th. 2024.